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Charles Carroll of Annapolis Discusses George Washington in 1760!
Charles Carroll of Annapolis Discusses George Washington in 1760!
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Washington George

Charles Carroll of Annapolis Discusses Virginia Case Involving George Washington with Attorney in Williamsburg

 

CHARLES CARROLL, Autograph Letter Signed, to [Robert Carter Nicholas, June 10, 1760, Annapolis, Maryland. 3 pp., 7.75" x 9.25". Silked front and back for stability. Ex-Charles I. Forbes.

 

Excerpts

“It is needless to tell you I think I have met with great injustice from yr General Court.”

 

“I therefore cannot conceive wt grounds ye Court had to say yt I promised to indemnify Clifton. Upon my Honour I am not Conscious yt I ever promised or engaged to indemnify Clifton & yet I cannot conceive a Court would say so without Evidence, yt I had done so, this is a point you possibly may be able to explain to me & I wish for ye honour of ye Court you would do it, & let me know wt Evidence ye Court had of this fact. It is at present a mistory to me.”

 

“I am told my Character was Grossly handled by Mercer I do not wonder at it, I saw ye man many years ago I think then in ye Capacity of a Servant to Coll Mason, he might by his Education Glean ye Flowers of Billingsgate & you know naturam expellas furca licet &c. But I wonder a Court wch may be supposed to consist of Gentn would suffer it, & my surprise would be heightened if (as I am told) they were influenced by it.”

 

“I have ye Honour to have a slight knowledge of yr Govr & to be better acquainted with his Character. I am told ye Decree is not agreeable to his opinion.”

 

“Upon Receipt of yrs of ye 22d finding you declined pointing out wt sum I shd send you I gave Mr Wm Digges Eight Pistoles to be paid to you & Mr Wythe for yr trouble on ye last hearing wch Money he told me he would forward to you by Coll Washington.”

 

“I am obliged to you for ye trouble you have taken for me in ye Cause, I have not ye least room to doubt it, & it is a piece of Justice wch I hear all do you who were present at ye hearing, for I am told yt they say you & Mr Wythe exerted yourselves, & yt ye opinion of ye bystanders was very different from ye Courts Decree.”

 

“PS Coll Tasker told me yt Coll Lee told him yt Mercer was allowed such large damages because no defence was made on ye Issue at Law this I am persuaded is false.”

 

This letter involves the complicated legal proceedings surrounding land owned by William Clifton (c. 1704-c. 1770) at Clifton’s Neck, Virginia, just north of George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate. Clifton was in perennial financial difficulty and had mortgaged the land to Charles Carroll, William Digges, and John Addison of Maryland. Carroll had loaned Clifton money in 1738, 1740, and perhaps other times. Over the years, several other Marylanders including Benjamin Tasker and Ignatius Digges also became involved in Clifton’s complicated affairs. In 1755, Clifton’s creditors brought suit in the Fairfax County court to sell his land to pay more than £1,000 in debts. In November 1755, the court ordered the sale of more than 2,300 acres of Clifton’s land. In April 1759, Clifton brought suit in chancery at the General Court in Williamsburg, which set aside the 1755 land sales and appointed commissioners to arrange for the sale of his land at public auction for the benefit of his creditors. Later in 1759, George Washington became one of the commissioners, leaving Washington in the awkward position of being both a commissioner and a potential purchaser of some of Clifton’s lands.

 

The commissioners met at Mount Vernon with Clifton, his attorney, and two of Clifton’s creditors. They prepared a report with the amount due each of Clifton’s creditors and sent it to the General Court in Williamsburg. There, on April 12, 1760, the General Court ordered the sale of Clifton’s lands at public auction. At the subsequent sale on May 20, George Washington was the high bidder for the 1,806-acre tract adjoining his property.

 

However, not all of the parties agreed to the settlement. Clifton’s attorney threatened to appeal the decree order the sale, and Clifton refused to vacate the land until 1862. Charles Carroll refused to deliver his mortgage on the property and threatened to appeal to the Privy Council in London.

 

Williamsburg attorneys Robert Carter Nicholas and George Wythe (1726-1806) sought to resolve this dispute and worked for both Charles Carroll and George Washington. They were already recognized as two of the most talented legal minds in Virginia. Nicholas was a burgess for York County, and Wythe was a burgess for the College of William and Mary. On May 27, 1760, they wrote to Washington, “We think with you that the greatest Danger is to be apprehended from Mr Carrol’s Demand; he at entering the final Decree moved for an Appeal, in which he seem’d very sanguine, but the Court refused it because they thought the Sum under £500 Stg. If he should continue as earnest in the Matter as he seem’d to be the last Time we heard from him, we suppose he will apply for & obtain a Writ of privy Seal to remove the Cause to England; if he should do this, we have very little Doubt but that so much of the Decree, as respects him, will be reversed. Mr Carrol’s original Demand, or rather Mr Ig. Digges’s for Carrol assign’d the Debt to him; ag’t Clifton was £627.9.4½ Sterlg with 6 ?Ct Int. from the 16th Octr 1752, as you’ll observe by the inclosed Acct; in this Sum was included the accumulated or comp[ound Interest so much complaind of by Clifton & which our Court disallow’d; but we incline to think that Carrol, considering the whole Circumstances of this Case, would upon an Appeal be allow’d his whole Demand; but at all Events, after deducting the comp[ound Interest, the Money Mr Mercer recover’d, if that should be allowed, & in short after making every Deduction which we think there is the least colourable Foundation for, we are convinced Mr Carroll is at least well entituled to £584.12.1½ Stg; so that by comparing these Sums with what is allow’d Mr Carroll by the Decree, you’ll be able to judge whether it is worth your while to offer him £100; tho’ if you still incline to do it & he will accept your Proposal, we think you will purchase his Acquiescence at an easy Rate.”

 

Carroll refused to settle with Washington, and not until thirty years later did Carroll’s son, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, give Washington a clear title to the land.

 

In this letter, Carroll employed the Latin proverb, “Naturam expellas furca licet usque recurret,” which translates to “You may drive out nature with a pitchfork, it will continually return,” to describe John Mercer (1704-1768) of Stafford County, an attorney who was so aggressive in the courtroom that he was barred from practice in 1734. Mercer turned to legal scholarship and had given Clifton a written opinion about the validity of a private sale of his property.

 

Although Jeffrey Amherst (1717-1797) was governor of the Virginia colony from 1759 to 1767, he was an absentee governor, and Lieutenant Governor Francis Fauquier (1703-1768) served as acting governor from 1758 until his death in 1768. Carroll likely referred to Fauquier in this letter.

 

Carroll informed Nicholas that he had sent eight pistoles to William Digges, who planned to forward it to Nicholas and Wythe by Colonel George Washington. A pistole was a Spanish gold coin, commonly used in Virginia at least until the 1760s. At that time, a pistole was worth almost a pound, or a little over 18 shillings.

 

George Washington had served as colonel and commander of the Virginia Regiment in the French and Indian War from 1755 to 1758, when he resigned. In January 1759, he married wealthy widow Martha Dandridge Custis, and settled into life as a Virginia planter and member of the House of Burgesses. On April 1, 1760, Washington had received a letter from Digges, enclosing a different packet for Nicholas and Wythe, that Digges wanted Washington to send on to Williamsburg.

 

 

Charles Carroll II or Charles Carroll of Annapolis (1702-1782) was born in Annapolis to a father who had immigrated from Ireland. As Catholics, both father and son were barred from Maryland political office after the “Protestant Revolution” of the late seventeenth century. After studying law in England, Charles Carroll II returned to Maryland to inherit and expand his father’s vast fortune and estates. He began courting Elizabeth Brooke in 1726, but they did not marry until 1757, when their son was twenty years old. That son, Charles Carroll of Carrollton (1737-1832), was the only Roman Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence, and he went on to serve as a U.S. Senator from Maryland, breaking through the barrier of Catholic office-holding in the state.

 

Robert Carter Nicholas (1728-1780) was born in Williamsburg, Virginia, and studied law at the College of William and Mary. He practiced in the General Court under the royal government and served in the House of Burgesses from 1755 to 1761 and from 1766 to 1775. He served as Treasurer for the colony of Virginia from 1766 to 1775. Although he opposed the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, he was a member of a committee to draft a declaration of rights and a new form of government for Virginia. After serving in the Virginia General Assembly from 1776 to 1778, he was appointed to the high court of chancery in 1779 and later to the Court of Appeals, the predecessor of the Virginia Supreme Court.

 

 

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