Dear Papa, Dear Charley: The Peregrinations of a Revolutionary Aristocrat, as Told by Charles Carroll of Carrollton and His Father, Charles Carroll of Annapolis, with Sundry Observations on Bastardy, Child-Rearing, Romance, Matrimony, Commerce, Tobacco, S

This compelling collection of correspondence between a father and a son documents the history of eighteenth-century America through the intimate story of a family and the journey from boyhood to political prominence of its most illustrious member, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the only Roman Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Beginning in the late 1740s, when “Papa” (Charles Carroll of Annapolis) sent “Charley” (Charles Carroll of Carrollton) away from his native Maryland t...