To George Washington from Lord Dunmore, 24 September 1773
From Lord Dunmore
Will[iamsbur]g 7ber 24th 1773
Dear Sir
I last Post received yours of the 12 instant wherein you beg to be informed whether I propose granting Patents on the Ohio to such Officers and Soldiers as Claim under His Majesties Proclamation in 8ber 1763. I do not mean to grant any Patents on the Western Waters, as I do not think I am at Present impowered so to do. I did indeed tell a poor old German Lieut. who was with me & inform’d me he was very poor & had ten Children that I possibly might grant him a Patent contiguous to that which he had under Mr Dinwiddies Proclamation, which I suppose is what may have given rise to the report you have heard; as to Capt. Bullet I know nothing about His surveying any Lands, & did when I was at Fort Pitt write to him adviseing him to return again immediately.1 I beg my best Respects to Mrs Washington & I am Dear Sir your most Obet & very Hble Se[rvan]t
Dunmore
ALS, MH.
1. See John Connolly to GW, 29 June, n.6, and 29 Aug. 1773, nn. 1 and 2. The poor German lieutenant was probably John David Wilper, who served as a lieutenant in the later years of the French and Indian War. While he was out on the frontier in 1773 with Thomas Bullitt on his surveying expedition into Kentucky, Wilper surveyed a 2,000–acre tract “about 1½ Miles Below Bigg Meaume [Miami] River South side of Ohio” in Botetourt County (A List of Surveys Made by Thos Bullitt and Deputys under the Claimers of the Proclamation of 1763, May 1774, DLC: Breckenridge Family Papers).