To Benjamin Franklin from Seth Paddack, 29 November 1769
From Seth Paddack5
ALS: American Philosophical Society
London November: 29th: 1769
Sir
I arivd here The 15th Inst: from Nantucket and Being an Intimate acquaintance of Capt. Timo: Folger, he Put on Board a Quintal of Salted Cod fish Cured: Directed To You But The Letter was omited: and if youll Send a Line to me with an order on Board The Yarmouth Laying off with Iron Gate or at Mrs. Fossick,6 The Fish is at your Service: I am Sir with Respect your’s To Serve.
Seth Paddack
P S: The Reason I Gave you No Notice Before was: I Knew Capt. Folger Sent a Letter To Mrs. Stevenson and Perhaps might advise her of the above.
S P
Mr. Franklin
Addressed: To / Benjamin Franklin / Esqr. at Mrs Stevensons / Craven Street / London
5. One of a large Nantucket clan, but which one we cannot say. The Paddacks (or Paddocks) and Folgers frequently intermarried, so that BF was related to both families. Seth Paddack may well have been the relation who called on him in London in 1773 (Van Doren, Franklin–Mecom, p. 139), for he signed his last surviving letter to him, in 1777, “your most Effectianate Kinsman.” During the French and Indian War, that letter makes clear, Paddack served as a naval officer; he then became a merchant captain, and during the War of Independence he was on a privateer in the Mediterranean. Paddack to BF, Aug. 2, 1777, APS.
6. The Yarmouth, of which Paddack was master, arrived at Dover from Boston: Public Advertiser, Nov. 14, 1769. She then sailed to London and anchored off Irongate Stairs, a wharf near the Tower. Samuel and Daniel Fossick, metalworkers, had shops on Cannon Street, also near the Tower. Henry B. Wheatley, London Past and Present … (3 vols., London, 1891), II, 263; Kent’s Directory … (London, 1770), p. 67.