Benjamin Franklin Papers

To Benjamin Franklin from [H.] Sykes, 26 January 1779

From [H.] Sykes7

ALS: Historical Society of Pennsylvania

Paris Jany. the 26th: 1779

Mr. Sykes presents his Respectfull Compliments to Mr: Franklin, and at the Request of a Friend, begs to be inform’d Whether in the Course of last Year he Receiv’d a Globe, (in Plaister of Paris) Sent him by Mr: Haywood of London.8

Mr: Franklin’s Answer will much Oblige Mr: Sykes9

Sykes,
Opticien Privilegié du Roi,
Place du Palais Royall á Paris

[Note numbering follows the Franklin Papers source.]

7An Englishman who had a store in the Place du Palais Royal. There he sold all kinds of scientific instruments as well as eyeglasses and served as a go-between for his French clients and the English manufacturers. See Maurice Daumas, Les instruments scientifiques aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Paris, 1953), pp. 228, 317–18.

8Perhaps James Haywood, an eighteenth-century draughtsman who is listed in Ronald V. Tooley, Tooley’s Dictionary of Mapmakers (Tring, Hertfordshire, 1979), p. 289.

9BF apparently asked for more information, in a letter now missing. Sykes wrote again, in response to that letter, on March 13 (APS).

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