From Benjamin Franklin to Jan Ingenhousz, 23 April 1784
To Jan Ingenhousz
ALS: Myron Kaller & Associates, Inc., Asbury Park, New Jersey (1989)
Passy, April 23. 1784.
Dear Friend,
I did intend to have written you a long Letter by the good Bishop,2 but cannot now accomplish it.— You will however have it very soon.— Fearing that the Seeds for your Friend might not arrive in time, to be planted this Spring, and having received a Box for some of my Acquaintance here, I sent a Part to you, to be dispos’d of as you please, supposing you might oblige him with them. I hope they got safe to hand.—3 I am, ever, my dear Friend, Yours most affectionately
B Franklin
Dr Ingenhauss.
2. Johann von Gott Nekrep, the eminent Orientalist, had come to Paris with a letter of introduction to BF from Ingenhousz dated Feb. 10: XLI, 542–3.
3. The previous September, Ingenhousz had sent BF an order for American seeds from the Graf von Chotek: XL, 562. For the reasons he explains here, BF divided what he had recently received from America (XLI, 177, 299–300) and gave a box containing some of each kind of seed to Bishop Nekrep, who had promised to forward them to Ingenhousz: BF to Ingenhousz, April 29[–May 2], 1785, in Smyth, Writings, IX, 314.