From George Washington to Landon Carter, 22 January 1797
To Landon Carter
Philadelphia 22d Jany 1797.
Sir,
I have, lately, been favoured with two letters from you dated at Sabine Hall, the 13th & 18th of last month. From what cause I know not, but so it has happened, that both of them have been long on their passage to this City.
For the trouble you have taken to answer the queries contained in my former letter, I pray you to accept my thanks;1 & when I am more at leisure than my present avocations afford me, I will go into detail on the several matters to which they relate—but now, my whole time is occupied with the duties of my public Station.2
The sole design of this letter, is to acknowledge the receipt of your two, above mentioned, and to request the favor of you to inform my Manager, Mr James Anderson, whether he can depend upon you (without any hazard of failure) for thirty bushels of Peas, and at what time he might send a Waggon for them. A letter directed to him at Mount Vernon, to the care of the Postmaster in Alexandria, will be sure of getting to his hands; and I have directed him to send for them immediately after notice of the time, as the Roads, so soon as the frost comes out of the ground, will be next to impossible:3 but in this circumstance, I am desirous, always, of having the Seeds which I intend to sow, in my possession before I begin to prepare the ground for the reception of them; that my plans may not be interrupted by untoward accidents.
So soon as the Peas are delivered draw upon me for, or let me know the cost of them, and the money shall be paid to your order, or remitted to you in Bank notes by the Post, as shall be most agreeable to yourself.4 With great esteem & regard I am Sir Your Obedt Hble Servant
Go: Washington
ALS (letterpress copy), ViMtvL.
1. In his letter to Carter of 8 Nov. 1796, GW posed a series of queries on agriculture. Carter answered several of GW’s questions in his letters to him of 29 Nov. and 13, 18 and 24 Dec. 1796 (see also Carter to GW, 27 Oct., and notes 2 and 5 to that document).
2. No further letter from GW to Carter pertaining to his queries has been found.
3. See GW to James Anderson, this date; see also GW to Anderson, 8 January. See also GW to Anderson, 27 Feb., and n.4 to that document; and Anderson to GW, 8 March 1797, in 1:20–23. Carter first advised GW about a supply of peas when he wrote him on 13 Dec. 1796.
4. For the transport of the peas and GW’s payment for them, see GW to Anderson, 27 Feb., and n.4.