1766, March 18th – From the daybook kept by Robert Wormley Carter, an example of the relationships among this class of landed rebels:

Gave Mr Mortimer William Roane’s Note of Hand for £15 .. o. . o
wch is payable Apl ist. This discharges the Drs Acct against me as far
as Jany last, the first visit he made poor litde Billy at Capt Beale’s. Roane
to be credited for the same & Mortimer charged with it.

Carter had returned to Sabine Hall from the excitement at Leedstown and Tappahannock, and was recording his continuing debits and accounts, as was his custom, in his daybook – just a few entries and days after his account of Archibald Ritchie’s impudence over Stamped Paper. Since William Roane had been one of the prominent leading organizers of the Tappahannock event, it appears that the two men conducted a bit of side business, with Roane giving Carter (one of the wealthiest men in the colony) a dated IOU for fifteen pounds; one wonders about the details of the transaction, since Carter records many frequent gambling debts. In this case, Carter gives the note over to Dr. Mortimer (first mayor of Fredericksburg, Virginia by the way), as partial payment for earlier treatment of his infant son Billy. Unfortunately the case hadn’t gone well. Just four weeks before was this entry:

22nd – This day at 3 OClock in the morning died my poor dear little Billy,
aged I7 months & one day; after an illness of more than 5 weeks, which
was owing to a severe cold he catched on the sudden change of weather one night at his Granfather Beale’s; this could not be removed by [any] medicine Mortimer could think of.

From “The Daybook of Robert Wormeley Carter of Sabine Hall, 1766,” reprinted in The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 68, No. 3 (Jul., 1960), pp. 301-316. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4246673.