To Benjamin Franklin from Peter Green and Timothy Parmele, 12 June 1783
From Peter Green and Timothy Parmele5
ALS:6 American Philosophical Society
Nance [Nantes] June 12th D 1783.
Sur,
You will Excuse my Boldnes but it is In A Case of distress to Let yo now the Circumstance That we two are in with many others.
We have taken all opertunitys to meet with Mr Williams the American Agent but we Cannot finde Him we go day after day to his Clerks they Always tell us He is Coming home7 when we Show our pass and Lets Them now how we ware prisoners to the English they Tell us they Can do Nothing For us.
We have had one Shift of Clothes From the Clerks. The man that we have boarded with will Keep us No Longer and keeps our Clothes they Will not pay our Board For tim paste nor to Come So we Expect to Starve In the Streets, we Can get No Ship atall, nor work.
The other prisoners Are on board Cap Cuningham Ship8 we have Spoke With him but he will not take Any More For he Says hes got Somany that he Does Not Know what to do with them.
So I Remain Your most Humble Servant
Peter Green
Timothy Parmele
Addressed: To Passe / Benjamin Franklin / Esr Minister of the / Eunited States of America / pour M. francklin—à Paris
Notation: Timothy Parmele 12 June 1783
5. American sailors who had escaped from British prisons and received assistance from BF on April 27: XXXIX, 5.
6. In the hand of Parmele, who signed for Green.
7. JW made two long trips to Paris between early April and June 17. He was only back in Nantes between May 24 and c. June 1: XXXIX, 503, 504n; JW to Thomas Jenkins, April 10, 1783, and to James Moore, May 25 and June 17, 1783 (Yale University Library); BF to Vergennes, June 3, above.
8. The Hannibal, Capt. Conyngham (XXIII, 585n). For JW’s role in sending home former prisoners of war, who flooded into Nantes during the summer of 1783, see our annotation of JW to BF, July 29. Both Parmele and Green are listed on JW’s account of those who received support in May: Account XXVII (XXXII, 4).