Graffenried's letter to Spotswood, written before the Germans left for Virginia, tried to represent things "as well as I could". He suggested:
"The Germans should be appointed to the land which we had together in Virginia not far from the place where the minerals were found and, as supposed, the traces of the mine, where they could settle themselves according to the wise arrangements and under the helpful supervision of the Governor."
The statement of Graffenried is ambiguous, but knowing that there was a 4,020 acre tract in Virginia in which Spotswood had at least a quarter-interest, and Graffenried a sixteenth-interest, it would seem that this is the land "we had together" in Virginia. Later comments of John Fontaine imply that this land was thought to contain silver.
Graffenried's letter continued:
"Meanwhile if there were not sufficient indications for a silver mine they were to look elsewhere, and because in Virginia there were, at any rate, neither iron or copper smelters but yet plenty of such minerals they could begin on these. And for these we needed no royal patents as we did for the silver mines."
This very last comment of Graffenried shows that when Spotswood was talking and writing about the royal patents he was not talking about iron but about silver and gold. Some people have said that when Spotswood was talking about silver and royal patents that he was using these as covers for iron which was his real interest. The truth is that Spotswood was talking about silver when he used the word silver.
Spotswood was not interested in iron at this time. He was well acquainted with the fact that Virginia had deposits of iron and that it would have been to the overall advantage of England to have iron smelters in Virginia. He was an advocate of this course of action. But England was a nation of shopkeepers and small manufacturers who wanted no competition. They succeeded in getting trade laws passed that prevented the colonies from making finished products. The colonies had to send raw materials to England, not finished goods. Iron was too much like finished goods as the output of the smelters were often the end products. The other reason that Spotswood was not personally interested in iron was that it was far too expensive for his resources.
Graffenried adds in his memoirs that the Germans left at the beginning of the year 1714. (The Germans were on the new calendar so this was probably January of 1714 as we reckoned the years.) Graffenried left London in the fall, as it would appear he "did not want to travel in the winter". In the memoirs he adds the statement that a whole year has now passed and he had not heard from them and for that reason he was in great anxiety.
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.