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Colonial and State Records of North Carolina
Letter from Francis Nicholson to the Board of Trade of England [Extract]
Nicholson, Francis, 1655-1728
August 27, 1700
Volume 01, Pages 529-530

[B. P. R. O. B. T. Virginia. Vol. 9. E. 16.—Extract.]
GOVr NICHOLSON TO LORDS OF TRADE 27th AUGUST 1700.

Virginia James City Augt 27th 1700

May it please your Lordships,

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No 10 is the copy of a letter from Mr Henderson Walker Deputy Governour of North Carolina by which your Lordships may please to see what reports there are about Dr. Cox and his Patents I had some acquaintance with him and I believe he is an honest Gentleman and a very good Doctor but by what he told me concerning his ill success of his Jersey Proprietorship I thought he had done with all such projects but I am afraid several people have abused the Doctor's good nature and generosity by telling him of strange countries and giving him Mapps thereof. The Marquis dela Muce and Monsieur de Sailly told me how they came to be engaged with him and what ill success they had. I wish that the Doctor would come into these parts of the world and run out the bound of his Countries and then I suppose he would have so much of the Continent of America that he would not care to come again I suppose there is some mistake about those two patents for I think there was no such person as a Duke of Norfolk in Charles the First's time and I have ordered our records to be searched and have done so myself

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(but I formerly found and do so now that the old Records are not very perfect) but can find no such Patent granted by Governor Harvey in 1631. Now I humbly propose to your Lordships that some final end may be made concerning these Patents for our inhabitants who border upon North Carolina hearing such Reports makes them very uneasy for I think nobody who could help it would willingly quit being his Maj. Tenant to be that of a Proprietors and the bounds being at present uncertain betwixt us and North Carolina people do not much care to take up land upon an uncertainty for fear least they should fall under a proprietorship but I beg leave to assure your Lordships that I will not be wanting in my duty to his Majesty both in protecting our inhabitants and asserting his Majesty's right to the lands &c.

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Your Lordships obliged
aud obedient humble Servant
FRANCIS NICHOLSON