Benjamin Franklin Papers

To Benjamin Franklin from Trevor Newland, 17 April 1765

From Trevor Newland9

ALS: American Philosophical Society

Holt,1 17th: Apll. 1765

Dear Sir.

Forc’d out of Town at an hours warning by a Gentleman who insisted upon my taking a seat in his carriage to Bath, prevented my Waiting upon you, not only for the Memorandum relative to Lecock,2 but to say fare well, which I hope you’ll excuse. I now find myself distant from Lecock between five and six miles, I shall have ocasion to go that road verry soon, therefore would be glad to make any enquiry you shall be pleas’d to direct, either there or in any other part of the Country, I find so little to do that it would be a Charity to employ me. I have not got one man this two months, in short I meet with non who are inclin’d to serve our State now, without a pension. I have been Inform’d that Doctor Clark and Mr. Clutterbuck of Bradford has had letters desireing they would enquire for the name of Carinton, in this Country, they say the enquiry is made by a Person in Philadelphia, but wheather it is the person you want to e[n]quire for, I cannot say, but immagin they have done but little in the affair as yet; with Compliments to Mrs. Stevenson I am Dear Sir with the greates regard Your Most Obedient Humble Servant

Trevor Newland

Please to direct to Bradford Wilts

Addressed: To / Doctr. Franklin / at / Mrs. Stevensons Creven Street / Strand / London

Endorsed: [Tre]vor New[la]nd

[Note numbering follows the Franklin Papers source.]

9The editors have been unable to identify Newland or any of the other people mentioned in this letter.

1A village about 2.5 miles east of Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire.

2Lacock is another small Wiltshire community, about 7.5 miles northeast of Bradford-on-Avon. It was the ancestral home of Mrs. Mary Johnson Hopkinson of Philadelphia, and because she had asked BF to look up her English relatives, he had apparently requested Newland to conduct the investigation there. George E. Hastings, The Life and Works of Francis Hopkinson (Chicago, [1926]), pp. 17–20, and below, pp. 124–6, 200.

Index Entries