Benjamin Franklin Papers

To Benjamin Franklin from Pomeroys & Hodgkin, 18 March 1767

From Pomeroys & Hodgkin1

ALS: American Philosophical Society

London 18 March 1767

Sir

We inclose You the Revd. Mr. Coopers2 two Sermons, Our freind Mr. Nicholas Boylston3 sent us, which we esteem deserving the high character he gives of Mr. Cooper, which You will please to forward to Glasgow as soon as possible to procure his degree of Doctor in Divinity,4 what ever charges You may be at shall be repaid You with the greatest gratitude by Sir Your most humble Servants

Pomeroys & Hodgkin

Addressed: To / Dr Franklin / Craven street / Strand5

1Pomeroys & Hodgkin were linen drapers with offices at no. 144 Leadenhall Street; from the contents of this note it appears that they had a substantial New England trade. [Henry] Kent’s Directory For the Year 1770 (London, 1770), p. 141.

2Samuel Cooper, whom BF had known for years, was minister of the Brattle Square Church in Boston; see above, IV, 69–70 n.

3Nicholas Boylston (1716–1771), a wealthy Boston merchant, was a nephew of Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, the physician who introduced inoculation for smallpox in North America (see above, VIII, 283 n), and a first cousin of John Adams’ mother. Boylston left £1,500 to Harvard for the Boylston Professorship of Rhetoric and Oratory, the first occupant of which was John Quincy Adams. For Boylston, see New England Hist. and Geneal. Reg., VII (1853), 146–9, and Josiah Quincy, The History of Harvard University (Cambridge, 1840), pp. 214–15.

4It was, however, the University of Edinburgh from which BF procured Cooper an S.T.D. in the summer of 1767; see below, pp. 218–19.

5On the address page of this letter BF drafted an epitaph for Margaret Ross, the daughter of his friend, John Ross; see below, p. 118.

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