From Benjamin Franklin to Samuel Wharton and William Trent, 3 July 1769
To Samuel Wharton and William Trent
AL: American Philosophical Society
Monday July 3. 69
Dr. Franklin presents his Compliments to Messrs. Wharton and Trent, and acquaints them that on Thursday (or Friday) last, he had a good deal of Discourse with Mr. Mildred, and afterwards with Mr. Mildred and his Solicitor Mr. Lane,7 when they concluded, on his Advice, to withdraw the Petition that had [been] presented to the King in Council, on Behalf of Messrs. Warder, Mitchel, &c.8
Addressed: To / Messrs Wharton and Trent
Endorsed: Dr Franklins Card July 3d. 1769
7. Daniel Mildred was a partner in the mercantile firm of Mildred & Roberts, which had extensive Philadelphia connections. See above, X, 108 n; XII, 100–1. Thomas Lane, the solicitor, lived in Boswell Court, Lincoln’s Inn Fields: Gent. Mag., XLIII (1773), 48.
8. Jeremiah Warder (1711–83) and Abraham Mitchel or Mitchell were both members of the group of Philadelphia merchants, the “suffering traders,” whose interests Wharton and Trent were representing in London. We have found no other reference to this petition, and can only conjecture that it was withdrawn as part of the change in strategy, then under way, that produced the expansion of the “suffering traders” into the Grand Ohio or Walpole Company, for which see the preceding documents.