Sep 28, 2017 - Sale 2455

Sale 2455 - Lot 120

Price Realized: $ 625
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 300 - $ 400
(FLORIDA.) Pair of letters discussing Andrew Turnbull, the disgraced leader of the failed New Smyrna colony. Each 2 pages plus integral blank, no postal markings; folds and minor soiling. London, 1786
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In 1768, the Scottish adventurer Andrew Turnbull established a colony of 1300 Greek immigrants within British East Florida--the largest one-time colonial settlement in North American history to that date. Dubbed New Smyrna, it did not flourish due to Indian raids, disease, and Turnbull's capricious rule. The surviving colonists fled to St. Augustine in 1777 and with the cession of Florida to Spain, Turnbull relocated to Charleston, SC. These two letters were written by Turnbull's longtime nemesis Patrick Tonyn, who had served as the British governor of East Florida from 1774 to 1784. Here he complains that Turnbull was still receiving favored treatment from the crown. His first letter is addressed to Evan Nepean, Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department: "I exceedingly regret sir, that you are embarrassed by misrepresentations from the friends of Doctor Turnbull, who have endeavored to colour over his intemperate proceedings by such artifices as are neither amiable or honourable . . . shewing how little Doctor Turnbull is deserving the attention of Government" (9 February 1786). The second letter, to Home Secretary Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney, recounts that "Sensible of Doctor Turnbull's rebellious principles and unrestrained impetuosity of temper, I ought in justice to have suspended him soon after his return to Florida in 1777. . . . It became absolutely unavoidable from his contemptuous behavior and defiance shewn in 1781. . . . Neither Doctor Turnbull or his agent Mr. Penman are intitled to countenance in this country. . . . Doctor Turnbull is living in a splendid way at Charlestown" (29 June 1786). with--a related letter from the former Prime Minister, William Petty, 1st Marquess of Lansdowne, to Nepean, relating to Turnbull's salary: "I should be sorry to neglect anything in behalf of one of the worst us'd men that ever liv'd & in consequence the most unfortunate." Lansdowne House, 10 February 1786.