To Benjamin Franklin from Thomas and Mary Barclay, 23 June 1783
From Thomas and Mary Barclay6
L:7 American Philosophical Society
Auteuil 23rd June 1783./.
Mr. & Mrs. Barclay presents their Complimts. to Doctor Franklin, and will have the Honor of Waiting on him at Dinner on Thursday.8
Addressed: His Excellency Benjamin Franklin Esqr. / Passy
6. This is one of three extant dinner acceptances from the Barclays, all written from Auteuil in a hand we now recognize as Henry Champion’s (for whom see the following footnote). Another, dated July 1, 1783, accepts BF’s invitation for an Independence Day dinner the following Friday (APS). The third, written on an unspecified “Thursday evening” and including Matthew Ridley, was published in December, 1781, at what we erroneously believed was the earliest possible time that Mary Barclay might have been with her husband in Paris: XXXVI, 201. She and her children did not leave Lorient until mid-June, 1783, moving into the spacious house at Auteuil that he leased from May 1, 1783, to April 30, 1784. The Ridley family joined them there in July, 1783, staying through the end of the year. A Thursday between July and December is therefore the most likely time for the acceptance: Roberts and Roberts, Thomas Barclay, pp. 117–19, 121–3, 126, 137–9.
7. In the hand of Henry Champion, who served as Barclay’s clerk from February, 1783, to July, 1784: Account XXVII (XXXII, 4).
8. June 26.