Where was the late Lt. Gov. Alexander Spotswood during the year of 1724? According to records at the Board of Trade and Plantations, he was in Virginia on the date of 16 June 1724. On that date he wrote to the Board to explain why he was detained in coming to England. Apparently he wanted to go to England, and several people and commissions in England wanted to talk to him about his land transactions.
His first excuse for his tardiness was that he could not get passage on a warship. He said he was afraid to go by a merchant ship because the pirates might learn of it and intercept the ship with the objective of capturing him. He had waged a vigorous campaign against piracy and there was a certain amount of truth in what he said. Still, it sounds more of a made-up excuse than a real reason.
Perhaps the real reason was that the year 1724 was the first year that he made sizeable shipments of iron to England. In 1723 he had shipped token quantities, and in 1724 he shipped significantly more. Knowing that he was to be absent for a considerable time in England, he probably wanted to establish that he could produce iron for export to England. Perhaps he was hopeful that the pattern he established in 1724 could be repeated in the following years, even though he was not there.
Spotswood suggested that he would probably go a northern port to catch a ship for England. We do not know the departure date (or the port), but we do know that on 1 Dec 1724 he appeared in person before the Board of Commissioners for Plantations and Trade, and asked to be notified if any complaints came before the Board concerning him. Since a primary purpose of his trip to England was to secure the title to his lands in Virginia, and since the Board was the center of all actions on the subject, I would conclude that he had not been in England very long before this date (1 Dec 1724).
The east bound trip across the Atlantic took about eight weeks, to judge by the mails. Therefore, it is probable that he left America in the month of September, which was three months after he had made his excuses in June. Taken all together, Spotswood could not have been in England more than two months in the year 1724 (NS). Two months at sea is an estimate.
The information that I have just given comes from the information at the Library of Virginia in their
Colonial Records Project
. For the 350th anniversary of the founding of the Colony of Virginia, people from Virginia went to England and microfilmed all records they could find that mentioned Virginia. One can search abstracts of the information in the project on-line, and obtain copies from the microfilm in Richmond, or copies of the original documents in England (various depositories).
(30 Oct 02)
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.