Benjamin Franklin Papers
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To Benjamin Franklin from Joseph Galloway, 12 October 1772

From Joseph Galloway

ALS (mutilated): American Philosophical Society

Philadelphia Octr. 12. 1772.

Dear Friend

I inclose three Bills of Exchange the Amount of your last Years

Salary drawn by Sterlg.
John Wilcocks on Alexr. and Jas. Baillie for £142 9s. d.
  Do Do for 166 15s. d.
Daniel Roberdeau on John Trevanion Esqr.9 190 15s. 2d.
£500

which I hope will be duly honor’d.

Our annual Election is now over, and I am again returnd to a Seat in the House, but whether with or against my Inclination I really cannot inform you. The Opposition I met with was the only Matter which gave Rise to a Wish to be elected, while my [health,] which has been long wasting in the Public Service, added to the [impossibility?] I find of pleasing an envious and discontented People by [torn] Endeavors to serve them, with an Abundance of un[torn] operated on the other side to render me [torn] situation, I gave my self no Trouble [torn] that all the reputable Part of the [torn] Election. The feeble Opposition [torn] giving me dayly [torn] State [rest of page missing] sending Men of Property and Character to the Legislative Council, and left it to be managed by the very Dregs of the People. To convince you of this I need only mention that Goddard wanted but a few Votes to constitute him a Representative for the County of Philadelphia. Mr. Fox who has served them 20 Years and Mr. James one of the most active and sensible Members the City ever had they have ungratefully rejected. Converse with the old Friends of good Order and Government and they express much Uneasiness and Alarm at the wicked and base Conduct of these mad People and yet they do not lift a finger to prevent it. Can you beleive that the Proprietary Friends principally obstructed Goddards Election while those whom we used to call ours woud not take the Trouble to walk to the State House? Indeed, my good Friend, shoud it ever be my Lot to stand in Need of Friendship, I shoud not know where to look for it among the latter, while I have a moral Assurance of meeting [it although?] unaskd among the former.1 Such is the [torn] since you left us!

A little Difference in [torn] Branches of the Legislature on [torn] at length given up by the [torn] has existed between [torn] Continuance [rest of page missing] by the Grantees, the Proprietors of the new Grant will receive very little Advantage from their Purchase.

This will be deliverd by my very Worthy Friend Doctor Denormandie, with whom, if I mistake not, you have some Acquaintance. He is on his Way to Geneva on Business relating to an Estate left him by a Relation. He may stand in Need of some Advice and perhaps recommendations [on?] his Travels.2 Any Act of Friendship which you may do him, will be esteemed as done to My Dear Friend, Yours most Affectionately

Jos. Galloway

Addressed: To / Benjamin Franklin Esquire / Deputy Post Master General of / North America in / Craven Street / London / favor’d by Doctr Denormandie

[Note numbering follows the Franklin Papers source.]

9For John Wilcocks see the Library Committee to BF above, May 28, and for Daniel Roberdeau XVII, 81. John Trevanion was doubtless the partner in Wood & Trevanion, a firm with which Roberdeau dealt (ibid., p. 88), and may well have been the man of that name who was later M.P. for Dover: Namier and Brooke, House of Commons, III, 562. The Baillies we cannot identify, but one of Wilcocks’ bills was not drawn on them; see BF’s reply below, Dec. 2.

1Galloway’s party in Philadelphia had dissolved in the electoral catastrophe of 1770, and he had retained his place as speaker of the Assembly only by winning a seat, at the bottom of the poll, from Bucks County. He never succeeded thereafter in restoring his popularity with the Philadelphia voters. The mechanics and small merchants, influenced by William Goddard’s diatribes in the Pa. Chron., turned against him; and in the election of 1772 they ousted two other conservatives who have often appeared in these volumes, Joseph Fox in the county and Abel James in the city. Galloway, shorn of allies, began to conciliate his old enemies in the Proprietary faction. See Benjamin H. Newcomb, Franklin and Galloway: a Political Partnership (New York and London, 1972), pp. 217–25.

2John Abram Denormandie (1721–1803) was a physician and justice of the peace in Bristol, Pa., and a member of the APS. The family was Swiss, and an uncle who died in 1771 had left his residuary estate to his American relatives. Arthur Sandys, Annals of De Normandie … (Cambridge, Mass., 1901), pp. 145–50; see also APS, Early Proceedings, … (Philadelphia, 1884), pp. 19, 44, 65, 75. De Normandie’s stay in London was brief, for he left on Dec. 2 for Geneva with a letter of introduction from BF; see BF to WF below, Dec. 2.

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