From Benjamin Franklin to Elizabeth Hubbart Partridge, 13 January 1772: fragment
To Elizabeth Hubbart Partridge1
ALS (letterbook draft; incomplete): American Philosophical Society
London, Jany. 13, 1772
Dear Betsey
I received your angry-a-little Letter by Mr. Marchant,2 written to me “tho’ I had suffered a preceding one to remain two Years unanswered.” If I did so, which I doubt, I was exceedingly to blame, and must desire you to excuse me in consideration of the many I have to write and the little time I have for Writing. I am sure I shall be the greatest Loser by a Failure of our Correspondence, since [torn] no Letters I receive afford me more Pleasure [remainder missing.]
Mrs Partridge
1. BF’s stepniece. They had corresponded actively years before, but no letter between them is extant for more than a decade before 1772. She had married Capt. Samuel Partridge, shopkeeper and superintendent of the Boston almshouse: above, I, lix.
2. Henry Marchant had arrived in England in early autumn, and presumably delivered the letter when he joined BF in Scotland at the end of October.