To Benjamin Franklin from David Hall, 5 March 1760
From David Hall
Duplicate: American Philosophical Society
Philada. March 5. 1760
Sir,
By the Captains Friend and Lowther to London and Captain Rankin to Bristol, I sent you the first, second and third Copies of a Bill of Exchange for £200 Sterling; some of which, if not all, must have got to your Hands long before this reaches you.1 I am not sure whether I wrote you the Exchange of that Bill; but in case I did not, it was Fifty-two.
Inclosed I now send you the first Copy of another Bill of Exchange for £200 Sterling more;2 which, with what I have before remitted you, since you left Philadelphia, makes in all Nineteen Hundred Forty-nine Pounds, Twelve Shillings, and Five Pence Sterling.3 For the Receipt of this last, you will please advise me, as usual, and give me Credit for it, when paid. The Exchange of this last Fifty-four.
I have wrote you so often lately, and hear so seldom from you, that I have nothing new or material to say; but must own that I was a good Deal surprised, on not receiving a single Line from you by the November or December Mails into New-York, nor by the Friendship, Captain McClelland, who arrived here from London Monday last, was a Week4. Your Reason for so long Silence, I am at a Loss to conceive. Wish the Fount of Brevier for the News Advertisements, (if we are to have one) was come; the old Letter is shockingly bad, and I don’t care to use the Bourjois,5 for the Reason I have several times given you, that it drives out so much.6 Wish you would send a Receipt for all the Bills sent you on a separate Piece of Paper, in your next Letter, and am Yours most sincerely
D. Hall
To Mr. Franklin.
By the Wolfe, Capt. McKinly, to Dublin7
1. BF recorded the receipt of this bill, drawn by William Plumsted (above, II, 153) on the London merchants, Nesbitt & Colebrook, on Jan. 31, 1760. It arrived in the James and Mary, Capt. James Friend. “Account of Expences,” p. 51; PMHB, LV (1931), 126; see also VIII, 448. Pa. Gaz., Feb. 14, 1760, records the clearance of the America, Capt. James Lowther, and the Prince George, Capt. Moses Rankin.
2. This bill, drawn by Scott & McMichael, merchants of Philadelphia, on George and James Portis, merchants of London, and a bill for £100, involving the same parties, which Hall sent BF on April 18, 1760 (below, p. 100), were protested. BF was entitled to 20 percent damages from the drawers of the protested bills, and on Aug. 26, 1760, Hall sent him a “fresh Draught” for £360 (below, p. 187). Believing, however, that Scott & McMichael had been “hardly us’d” by the Portises, BF refused to accept the damages; Hall heartily concurred, Scott & McMichael being in his opinion “very honest Men, and most genteel Dealers.” See below, pp. 177–8, 235. BF’s memorandum of this transaction is recorded in “Account of Expences,” p. 56, and in PMHB, LV (1931), 128–9.
3. For a list of Hall’s remittances, see above, VII, 235–6.
4. On March 28, 1760, BF acknowledged letters from Hall of Dec. 15, 1759 (above, VIII, 448–9), and Feb. 8, 1760 (not found). From Hall’s letter of April 18 (below, p. 100) it would appear that BF last wrote him in August 1759.
5. On Feb. 22, 1760, BF recorded paying William Caslon £43 2s. 6d. “for Brevier for my printing house.” “Account of Expences,” p. 52. (Eddy in PMHB, LV (1931), 127, inaccurately gives the sum as £42 2s. 6d.) The Brevier type was shipped in the Beulah, Capt. James Gibbon, which arrived in Philadelphia about June 1, 1760. On July 2, 1760, Hall acknowledged the receipt of the type. See below, pp. 39, 179, and Pa. Gaz., June 5, 1760.
6. That is, it uses too much space.
7. Pa. Gaz., March 6, 1760, records the clearance of the Wolfe, Capt. Allen M’Kinly.