Benjamin Franklin Papers

To Benjamin Franklin from John Franklin, 4 November 1751

From John Franklin

ALS: Historical Society of Pennsylvania

Boston Nov 4th 1751

Dear Brother

I have spoke with Turner about your seal. He thinks he cant git the Designe Compleated before the post going but will have it Ready against the next.3

Rogers & Foule4 to whoom I Red the parigraph of your Letter Relateing to your Ballence and Foul Tole me he [would] Take Care that it be paid when Billey Comes who is not yet arriv’d but suppose he will be hear the first southerly wind. When he Comes shall be Right Glad to see him and hope the small Time you allow him will be agreeably spent boath to him and his frind Swan.5

I have not Time to Enlarge being Just going on bord the Germin ship with Messrs. Hutchinson, Oliver and Wendell a Committee of Council.6 With Love to all I am your affectionate Brother

John Franklin

Addressed: To Benjamin Franklin Esqr Postmr Philada

[Note numbering follows the Franklin Papers source.]

3James Turner (see above, III, 144 n). This is probably a reference to the seal of the Pennsylvania Hospital, which the managers asked BF to have made.

4Gamaliel Rogers (d. 1775) and Daniel Fowle (1715–1787) of Boston formed a partnership, 1742–50; printed the short-lived Boston Weekly Mag., 1743, Amer. Mag. and Hist. Chron., 1743–46, for which BF was a sales agent, and Independent Advertiser, 1748–50. In BF’s Ledger D, Rogers & Fowle are charged a total of £128 10s. for paper purchased in 1748–49. Fowle was jailed, 1754, on the charge of publishing a libel on some members of the House of Representatives; soon afterward he left Massachusetts and opened a printing office in Portsmouth, N.H., where he published New Hampshire Gaz. Thomas, Printing, I, 122–4, 129–32; II, 66–8; Col. Soc. Mass. Pubs., IX (1907), 477.

5William Franklin’s friend was probably a son of Richard Swan, hatter and lieutenant in one of the companies of Associators, 1748 (see above, III, 309). He may have been the same who came to BF in London “in a poor naked Condition,” saying he had been cast away. BF gave him a coat and lent him some money. BF to Deborah Franklin, June 4, 1765.

6Joseph Crell brought over a group of German immigrants to settle in western Massachusetts. His scheme was abandoned, the immigrants were cared for in Boston, and some found employment in a glass factory in which John Franklin was a founding partner. See above, p. 77 n.

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