In Their Own Words
November 05, 1759
Difficulty in Communicating and Paying Bills Recorded
Thomas Raspberry ran a mercantile firm in colonial Savannah, and kept a detailed letter book of his transactions. His entry for this day, a letter to two ship captains, shows how difficult communication, and thus his bill paying, could become:
“… I receiv’d the few Goods from Glasgow which you were so kind as to forward to me, and must beg you to send away the 2 enclosed Letters per 2 separate Conveyances for that Port; they contain 2 bills of a Draft on London, and must I apprehend if landed in some Parts of England take a very long Tour before they are Paid & as my remittances to Glasgow must always be of this Kind (i.e.) in Bills on London I was thinking whether it might not be Suitable to make immediate payments there for what things I may hereafter receive from Glasgow… .”
Source: Lilla Mills Hawes (ed.), Collections of the Georgia Historical Society, Vol. XIII, The Letter Book of Thomas Raspberry, 1758-1761 (Savannah: Georgia Historical Society, 1959), p. 87.
