From Benjamin Franklin to Deborah Franklin, 6 February 1767
To Deborah Franklin
ALS: American Philosophical Society
London, Feb. 6. 1767
My dear Child,
Here are three Ships about to sail.9 I can only write to my Friends by the last of them or by the Packet, that goes to morrow Week.1 Yet I must write a Line to you by every one of them, tho’ it be only to tell you I am well and very busy. I have received your Letters by the December Packet and by Captain Beves.2 I have got the Clothes and have worn them, but find them too tight for me, and must have the Wastecoat let out. I thank you for the Garters they are excellent. The Apples and Meal not come ashore yet.3 My Love to Sally. I am, Your ever loving Husband
B Franklin
Miss Stevenson sends her Love to Sally, with the enclos’d painted Lace, in the room of that which was lost.
Addressed: To / Mrs / Franklin / at / Philadelphia / per Capt. / Nuttal.
9. The Success, Capt. Samuel Nuttle, by which BF sent this letter; the Carolina, Capt. James Friend; and the Clarendon, Capt. J. Carr, all of whose arrivals are reported in Pa. Gaz., April 30, 1767.
1. The Earl of Halifax packet, Capt. Bolderson, which had sailed from New York, Dec. 24, 1766, with a letter from DF to BF (not found), sailed from Falmouth, March 6, 1767, and arrived in New York, April 17, 1767. Pa. Gaz., April 23, 1767. If BF wrote DF by this vessel, the letter has not been found; there is a good possibility that he did, for DF in a letter of April 20–25, 1767 (below, p. 134), speaks of his “Dear littel letter by the packit.”
2. DF’s letter of Dec. 13, 1766, only a fragment of which survives (above, XIII, 523), was sent by the Mary Ann, Capt. T. Beves, whose clearance was reported by Pa. Gaz., Dec. 18, 1766.
3. These matters were evidently mentioned in the lost letter by the packet, or in the missing parts of the Dec. 13, 1766, letter.