1From Benjamin Franklin to the Speakers of the Colonial Assemblies: a Circular Letter from Franklin, William Bollan, and … (Franklin Papers)
LS : Library of Congress Our last Letter informed you, that the King had declared his Intention of laying the Petition before his two Houses of Parliament. It has accordingly been laid before each House, but undistinguished among a Variety of Letters and other Papers from America. A Motion made by Lord Chatham, to withdraw the Troops from Boston, as the first Step towards a conciliating Plan,...
2Three Public Notices Concerning the Petition from the Continental Congress, 17–18 January 1775 (Franklin Papers)
I and II: printed in The Whitehall Evening Post , respectively January 19–21 and 14–17, 1775; III: printed in The Public Advertiser , January 20, 1775. Once Dartmouth informed the Massachusetts agents on December 24 that the King had received the petition from the Congress and would lay it before Parliament, they had to decide when it might properly be published. As soon as it had been...
3To Benjamin Franklin from William Bollan, 7 December 1771 (Franklin Papers)
AL : American Philosophical Society Mr. Bollan presents his compliments to Dr. Franklin, and desires to see him this afternoon about five, if convenient, upon a matter which chiefly relates to himself, and will not admit of much delay. Addressed: For / Dr. Franklin Dec. 7 was a Saturday in 1771, and not again during BF ’s mission. Bollan moved to Southampton St. in that year; see his letters...
4From Benjamin Franklin to the Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly: a Circular Letter from Franklin, William Bollan, and … (Franklin Papers)
ALS : Princeton University Library; draft: Library of Congress When four of the seven agents to whom the Congress had entrusted its petition refused to have anything to do with it, the three representatives of Massachusetts faced the problem of how to deliver it; and they decided to depart from their instructions and not put it directly into the hands of the King. The “regular Official...
5Franklin and William Bollan to Lord Dartmouth, 20 August 1773 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : the William Salt Library, Stafford This letter to the American Secretary, and the one from Franklin alone on the following day, raise an interesting question about the agents’ timing. On the 20th they forwarded what had “this day come to our hands,” the letter to Dartmouth from the Massachusetts House and Council; on the 21st Franklin forwarded the petition from the House, “just...