To Benjamin Franklin from Robert Pigott, [after 27 December 1781]
From Robert Pigott2
AL: American Philosophical Society
Hotel de York Rue Jacob, Saturday morng
[after December 27, 1781]3
Mr Pigott presents respectfull compliments to his Excellency Dr. Franklyn & has the Honor to send Three Letters which He brought from Geneva. Mr. Pigott hopes his Excellence will permit Him the Honor to make his personal respects as soon as may be.
2. Pigott (DNB), convinced that the American Revolution presaged the ruin of England, had sold his Shropshire estates and moved to the continent. In 1780 he married Marguerite-Henriette Bontems, from a Geneva banking family, and purchased the domaine de Penthes, just outside the territory of the Geneva Republic. He was an advocate of reforms in diet and dress, and a devoted supporter of Rousseau’s educational ideals. Walter Zurbuchen, archivist of the state archives in Geneva in 1978, provided information to us on Pigott’s years in Geneva.
3. See the preceding letter, which Pigott delivered. He also carried BFB’s of Nov. 20 and Dorcas Montgomery’s of Nov. 21.