GEORGE WASHINGTON (1732-1799). Virginia planter and military officer, Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, Presiding Officer of the 1787 Constitutional Convention, and First President of the United States serving two terms from 1789 to 1797; often called the "Father of His Country" for his central role in the nation's founding.
August 5, 1773-Dated Colonial Period, Autograph Letter Signed, “Go: Washington” by George Washington, also mentioning John Parke Custis (1754-1781), with Integral Transmittal Cover in Washington’s hand to his London mercantile agent, Robert Cary & Company, the letter being written at Mount Vernon and dated August 5, 1773. This letter 1 page with an Integral Transmittal Cover on the blank extra page measuring about 11.5 x 7.75 inches, written in easily readable rich brown ink on clean laid period paper. The lower left blank section is less toned being away from any text, an unusual occurance we have seen on other examples, and has some archival reinforcement to the spine. It has been expertly conserved and deacidified for preservation having sealed blended portions where the original red wax seal was openned. The letter begins with Washington's concern that his order of July 12th (1773) requesting marine insurance on tobacco belonging to his stepson, Mr. John Parke Custis, and himself, being shipped aboard the vessel “Rising Sun,” had been mistakenly handed to the ship's master, Captain Jacob Peterson, rather than forwarded through the proper channel. Fearing the original order might never reach Cary & Company, George Washington repeats his instructions, directing that £500 be insured on John Parke Custis's seventy-five hogsheads of tobacco and £100 on his own consignment, both being aboard the same vessel. He closes the letter by confirming a bill of exchange drawn that same day for £65 sterling, payable to the Reverend Jonathan Boucher and charged to Custis's account, as compensation for Boucher's service as "his late Tutor."

Every figure named in this letter belongs to George Washington's inner circle of family, inclusive of business, and education in the years just before the American Revolution. John Parke Custis, known as "Jacky," was Martha Washington's son by her first marriage and, at age nineteen, was the primary heir to the Custis estate that Washington managed as guardian. Reverend Jonathan Boucher had tutored Custis since 1768, first at his school in Caroline County, Virginia, and later in Annapolis, but the arrangement ended that spring, for in May 1773 George Washington placed Custis at “King's College” (now Columbia University) in New York. The move was prompted both by dissatisfaction with his stepson's academic progress and by Custis's recent engagement to Eleanor "Nelly" Calvert, which is why the letter already refers to Boucher as "his late Tutor" by August. Robert Cary & Company was the London merchant house that had served as Washington's principal agent for Tobacco consignment and English goods since the 1750s, and Captain Peterson regularly carried the Custis and Washington tobacco crops by ship across the Atlantic in these years.

This exact letter is published from a retained letter-book copy held among the George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, and the text of this present document matches that published version almost word for word, down to the £500/£100 insurance figures and the 75-hogshead tally for Custis's crop. One small variant is worth noting: the modern editors observe that the letter-book copy places its parenthesis before "his late Tutor," enclosing the whole clause about Custis's account, whereas the present document parenthesizes only "(his late Tutor)" on its own. That difference is consistent with this being the authentic, actual autograph letter that George Washington sent across the Atlantic to Cary & Company, rather than the office copy he may have retained for his own records. The address cover with a SHIP stamp “To / Robert Cary Esqr & Co, in London”. This letter reads, in full:

Mount Vernon Augt 5th 1773

Gentn.

I have some reasons to fear that, by an unlucky mistake, my Letter of the 12th Ulto (among other things) ordering Insurance on Mr Custis's Tobacco & mine in the Rising Sun, was put into the hands of Captn Peterson. If so, the Tobacco and order for Insurance on it will probably go by the same Ship; I therefore again desire (if this Letter gets to hand in time) that Five hundred pounds may be Insured on Mr Custis's Tobo (which I now learn amounts to 75 Hhds) and One hundred pounds on mine in this Ship. -

Of this date I have drawn upon you for Sixty five pounds Sterlg on Acct of Mr John Parke Custis, and in favour of the Revd Mr Boucher (his late Tutor) which please to pay, & place it to the debit of the above Acct.

I am Gentn. Yr most Obedt Servt --- (Signed) Go: Washington

Washington’s impressive concluding signature measures a large 2.5” long.

[VERSO - address panel, written in Washington's hand]

Robert Cary Esqr & Co

Merchts. in

London

[VERSO - docketing, in a clerk's hand, likely Robert Cary & Co.'s London counting house]

Virga (Virginia) 5 August 1773

Colo Geo Washington

Recd 28 Sepr 1773

This exact letter is confirmed and published in The Papers of George Washington, hosted at Founders Online (National Archives / University of Virginia Press). It has a Source Note: ALB, DLC:GW, meaning this is Washington's own letter-book copy, held at the Library of Congress. Founders Online citation: founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/02-09-02-0224, part of The Papers of George Washington, Colonial Series, vol. 9, published by the University of Virginia Press.
John Parke Custis (1754-1781), often called "Jacky" Custis, was the son of Martha Washington from her first marriage to Daniel Parke Custis, and thus was the Stepson of George Washington after Martha remarried in 1759.

He grew up at Mount Vernon and later inherited substantial wealth and land from his father's estate, including the White House plantation in New Kent County, Virginia. Known for being somewhat indifferent to his education, he left King's College (now Columbia University) without graduating and married Eleanor "Nelly" Calvert in 1774.

During the American Revolutionary War, he served briefly as a civilian aide to General Washington at the Siege of Yorktown in 1781, where he contracted "camp fever" (likely typhus) and died shortly afterward at the age of 26.

Two of his four children, Eleanor "Nelly" Custis and George Washington Parke Custis, were subsequently raised by George and Martha Washington at Mount Vernon.

This is a business letter to Robert Cary & Company, being a follow-up running saga to his prior July 12, 1773 letter. Washington had already flagged that there was confusion over exactly how many hogsheads of Custis's tobacco were loaded onto the ship “Rising Sun” under Captain Peterson. He worried that the crop might come to 74 hogsheads or only 64 depending on whether an "Eastern Shore" shipment had made it aboard, here showing the August 5 letter was a follow-up correction, after he "now learned" the true count was 75 hogsheads. It's a small but neat illustration of how much personal and family business logistical uncertainty George Washington was managing long-distance across the Atlantic in the run-up to the American Revolution.