The "Official Correspondence and Military Letters of Virginia Colony Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie, 1754-1756," were collected here in two bound volumes of holograph copies. According to a note in the front of one of the volumes, the correspondence was originally transcribed in 1820 for Jared Sparks, who was one of the earliest archivists/collectors in the United States. Sparks was an advocate for the collection, preservation, and publication of manuscripts which documented early American history. Copied from Dinwiddie's original letters, which are deposited in the Virginia Historical Society, the letters were probably part of Sparks's research for his twelve-volume Writings of George Washington (1834-1838). A significant number of Dinwiddie's letters are addressed to George Washington, first in his role as an adjutant in the Virginia militia, and later as a Lt. Colonel during the French and Indian War. Dating between 1754 and 1756, the correspondence in these volumes chronicles three significant years of Dinwiddie's administration as the acting Governor of the Virginia Colony. During these years Dinwiddie, in his zeal to maintain the authority of the British on the Ohio River and surrounding territory, contributed to the initiation of the Seven Years War. The dissension created in the colony over his pistole tax and request for funding for military expeditions made his administration highly unpopular among the colonists.
