To Benjamin Franklin from Edmund Clegg, 25 December 1781
From Edmund Clegg9
ALS: American Philosophical Society
Decr 25: 1781
The Subscriber humbly hopes the importance of the subject proposed will plead his pardon for the want of all formalities of Address.
The Bearer Mr Henry Wild has some things to lay before you, of such a kind as it is humbly hoped, will claim your attention.1 He is a prudent and honest man, and with his connected friends, equal to the Proposed Undertaking.
If the Scheme is approved, it will be with the Utmost pleasure Promoted, in every thing within the Power, of Your &c &c &c &c
Edmund Clegg
No 2 Wilkes Street Spitalfields London
9. Having formerly operated a silk throwing mill in Manchester, Clegg was now a silk weaver and Baptist preacher in London: Robert Glen, “Industrial Wayfarers: Benjamin Franklin and a Case of Machine Smuggling in the 1780s,” Business History, XXIII (1981), 310. He was one of the most prominent members of the Emigrant Club, for which see our annotation of the Nov. 23 petition from Henry Royle et al.
1. Henry Wyld delivered the Nov. 23 petition to BF; see his letter, below, of Jan. 2.