Benjamin Franklin Papers
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https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-25-02-0085

The Committee for Foreign Affairs to the American Commissioners, 1 November 1777

The Committee for Foreign Affairs to the American Commissioners

Two copies: National Archives

York Town Pensylvania
1 Novemr. 1777

Honorable Gentlemen

This will be delivered to you by Colo. Ewing of Baltimore in Maryland, who goes to France on affairs of commerce, and whom we recommend to your civilities as a Gentleman of worth, who has in arms contended for the liberty of America.6 We are &ca. Signed

R. H. Lee
J. Lovell

To the Honble. B. Franklin, S. Deane, & A. Lee Esqrs.

[Note numbering follows the Franklin Papers source.]

6All the indications are that the Colonel carried the committee’s important dispatch of the day before, and that neither it nor this note reached the commissioners; no copies are among their papers, and we have found no reference in their correspondence or in Arthur Lee’s diary to the letters or their bearer. Thomas Ewing (1730–90) had commanded a Maryland battalion the previous year, and had resigned because of bad health and his “affairs of Commerce” abroad. In August, 1777, he was prevented from attending to the latter by the British blockade. National Soc. of the Daughters of the Amer. Revolution Lineage Books, CXI (1929), 23; Lucie L. Bowie, “Maryland Troops in the Battle of Harlem Heights,” Md. Hist. Mag., XLIII (1928), 7, 11, 15; Calendar of Maryland State Papers, IV, pt. 2, The Red Books ([Annapolis, Md., 1953]), p. 192. This note indicates that in November Ewing tried again, but if he sailed he apparently did not arrive.

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