Discusses various maps of Virginia and North America, including [Joshua] Fry and [Peter] Jefferson's and Lewis Evans's, and remarks that the latter map gives a clear idea of the "immensly valuable" land contested between Britain and France; describes the method by which canoes are lashed together in order to carry heavy hogsheads of tobacco from upland streams; discusses explorations of the Mississippi River and expands upon the "vast Importance of that prodigious River"; mentions "the present troubles" [the Seven Years' War] and complains that the Virginia frontier has been left "naked and exposed" by legislators who knew nothing about the backcountry; comments that "the Possibility of the Children doing well without the Parent" is a subject that must be treated with "Reserve & delicacy"; discusses family matters.; Erratum on microfilm: last page not filmed; includes a transcription of an extract from the letter, 11 pp.
