From Benjamin Franklin to Thomas-François Dalibard, 22 September 1769
To T[homas-François] Dalibard6
ALS (draft): American Philosophical Society
London, Sept. 22. 1769
Dear Friend
Having this Opportunity by M. Le Roy,7 I embrace it to thank you most heartily for the many Civilities and Marks of Friendship I received from you and Madame Dalibard while in Paris; and to express my sincere and cordial Wishes for your Health and Prosperity: in which I am join’d by my Friend Sir John Pringle.8
As I cannot soon again enjoy the Happiness of being personally in your Company, permit my Shadow to pay my Respects to you. ’Tis from a Plate my Son caus’d to be engrav’d some Years since.9 With the greatest Esteem and Respect, I have the honour to be, Dear Sir, Your most obedient humble Servant
B Franklin
Mr D[alibard]
6. The physicist and botanist, whom BF had met for the first time on his visit to Paris in September 1767. See above, IV, 302 n; XV, 35.
7. One of the several LeRoy brothers whom BF had met in Paris two years before. See above, XV, 83. It was not, however, Jean-Baptiste: see the next document.
8. BF had returned on Aug. 24 from a second visit to Paris with his old friend Sir John.
9. The mezzotint by Edward Fisher, after Mason Chamberlain’s portrait of BF, for which see above, X, frontispiece and illustration note.