Franklin: Receipt for Chaumont to Sign, 23 November 1780
Franklin: Receipt for Chaumont to Sign8
AD: American Philosophical Society
Passy, Nov. 23. 1780
Received of Benjamin Franklin Esquire Minister in France of the United States of America, a Set of Bills of Exchange drawn by him on the President of Congress for Four hundred Thousand Livres Tournois, being on Account of Cloth sold to him by me for their Use.9 And also another Set of Bills of Exchange drawn as aforesaid, for One hundred Thousand Livres Tournois, being so much advanced to me on Account of the Freight of my Ship the Marquis de la Fayette.1
Notation in Franklin’s hand: Receipt wrote for M. de Chaumont to sign, when I should deliver him the Bills of Exchange Novr 23. 1780.
8. This is a receipt for Chaumont to sign once he had received the two sets of bills of exchange that JW had originally drafted and sent to BF on Nov. 7 (XXXIII, 511). JW left blanks for the date and the sum; BF filled them in, using Nov. 24 as the date. BF also interlined the purposes toward which each sum had been applied (either for cloth or for the freighting of the Marquis de Lafayette), wrote directions for the copyist, and endorsed the whole as, “Mr William’s propos’d Form of a Draft on Congress for the Cloths.”
9. We have not located a copy of this set.
1. Among BF’s papers at the APS is a set of these bills (in quadruplicate) dated Nov. 23, 1780, addressed to President of Congress Huntington, and payable to the order of Chaumont in Philadelphia thirty days after presentation in hard (specie) dollars or in public treasury bills drawn on BF “for value received In part of Freight of the Ship Marquis de la Fayette.” These specify that treasury bills drawn on BF can “be replaced in France without Loss or Deduction.” The four copies are in the hand of Gurdon S. Mumford and are unsigned.