Korespondencja Roberta „Króla” Cartera jako źródło do badań nad mentalnością elity osiemnastowiecznej Wirginii

Abstrakt

The main topic of the preserved letters of Robert “King” Carter were commercial issues – shipments of tobacco, and the consignment of goods from England. The correspondence is full of his complaints about the quality of crops, the price of tobacco in England, ridiculously exorbitant prices of English goods, and imprecations against the Scots, whose dishonest competition was, in his opinion, the most important cause of the deterioration of the Atlantic tobacco trade. Commercial issues were dominant not only because merchants were the addressees of the largest number of his letters. At the time tobacco trade was the way of life of all wealthy planters of the Old Dominion. In addition to this, we can find frequent remarks on issues related to the domestic and foreign policy of England and its colonies, descriptions of danger from buccaneers and pirates, the matters concerning the administration of the estates of omas Fairfax, as well as problems of upbringing and education of children in England. On the occasion of the suering resulting from gout attacks and toothache, we also, though very rarely, have an insight into his private life. The importance of Carter’s letters for the study of the mentality of the 18th century Virginia elite is invaluable, especially due to the fact that there is not much correspondence of the Virginia elite members preserved from the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.