Alexander Spotswood letter to William Blathwayt, 1712 May 8

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I had the honour to receive sometime ago under your Cover her Majestys
Warrant for remitting £3000 into the Exchequer out of the Quitrents, the State
of that Revenue is so well known to you, that I need not tell you how
long time it will require before such a considerable draught can be entirely
answered : but there is another thing which makes me fear the
Consequences of drawing out that whold Revenue at this Juncture,
We are now in very great apprehensions of an Indian War, the
Indians who committed the Massacre in Carolina being so slated with their
Success, and the weak efforts made against them by the people of that
province, that they are become unaccountably insolent and daring, and
we daily expect they will begin the like Tragedy here, as they acted there,
and upon such an Event, I'm sure there never was greater Occasion
since Bacon's Rebellion, for leaving some money to answer the
Exigencys of the Government, However after having done what I
think I'm obliged to, by representing this matter to my Lord Treasurer
and the Lords Commissioners for Trade, it is my duty to obey her Majestys
commands, and accordingly the money demanded shall be remitted as
soon as it arises.

By her Majestys Instructions to Collonel Hunter and Collonel Nicholson
for

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for the better carrying on the Service against Canada last Summer,
they were impowered to draw out all the ballance then remainng on
the Quittrents here, and accordingly at Collnel Hunter's desire not only
that ballance was applyed towards the purchase of provisions for that
expedition, but on his pressing the buying up all that wuld be had
here as being of the last consequence to the Service, there was advanced
by the Receiver General and my self near £1700, more on the Credit
of the growing Income of the Quittrents and Collonel Hunter's promise
to draw bills on the Treasury for what should be further disbursed.
What he hath done in relation to those bills, I can't yet tell, only
that I am for my share still unpaid above £1200 and if the bills
should not be answered at the Treasury, I hope may reasonably
expect to be repaid out of the Quittrents, Since I neither had any
profite nor proposed any other end in advancing this money, nor for
the pains I took in obtaining so great a quantity of provision (at a
Rate which must be owned to be very reasonable) than purely to
promote her Majestys Service.

I am sorry to acquaint you that Mr Le Fevre's behaviour both in the
discharge of his office in the College, and in his private Conversation was
so unbecoming that the Governors of the College were obliged to dismiss
him from acting any longer as one of the Masters, but they had so
great a deference to the honorable Recommendations he brought with him
that

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that they continued his Sallary above 4 months after he was discharged
of his office, untill he provided otherways for himself: I must however so
far excuse him that I believe his irregularitys were more owing to his
uneasienss with an idle scandalous woman he brought over with him, than
to any vicious disposition of his own, for since I seperated them by sending
her back to England, he has acted quite another part, and settled in a
Gentlemen's family where he teaches his Son and some others in
that Neighbourhood, and has a compleat Sallary enough to keep him
from being burthensome to his friends, especially if some small
Exhibition could be obtained for him at home; and I am not without
hopes from the extraordinary change there appears in him he may
again recommend himself to his former place in the College, which
I'm sure would be very acceptable to all the Gentlemen of that
Society, upon the account of your Recommendation, and to none
more than myself, who am with great truth and Esteem.

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8 May 1712

From Collonel Spotswood
Received the 4th August
1712