To Benjamin Franklin from Samuel Chase, 28 June 1784
From Samuel Chase
ALS: American Philosophical Society
London. 28 June 1784.
My Dear Sir.
I beg leave to introduce to Your Notice, Civility and friendship Mr. Moss, Son of the Bishop of Bath & Wells.9 This Gentleman is very desirous of being honoured with your Acquaintance.
I am still detained here but shall certainly sail before the middle of next Month.1 I shall be happy to render You any Services in America. Mr Champion,2 requests his Compliments to You, from this Gentleman’s Recommendation I have recommended Mr Moss, of whom he speaks in the most liberal and friendly Manner.
Accept my best Wishes for your Health and Happiness. Your Affectionate Friend
Saml. Chase
Addressed: His Excellency / Benjamin Franklin Esqr / Minister of / The United States / at Paris
Endorsed: Lodges at the Hotel de Richelieu Rue Richelieu.
Notation: Samuel Chase 28 June 1784
9. Charles Moss (1763–1811), son of Bishop Charles Moss (1711–1802), received his B.A. from Oxford in 1783. He would eventually be named bishop of Oxford: ODNB, under Charles Moss, Sr.
1. Chase did not leave England until mid-August: James Haw et al., Stormy Patriot: the Life of Samuel Chase (Baltimore, 1980), p. 128.
2. Richard Champion had resigned as deputy paymaster general in January and immigrated to South Carolina the following October. He died there in 1791: XL, 515n; Hugh Owen, Two Centuries of Ceramic Art in Bristol … (London, 1873), p. 262; Dixon Wecter, “An Unpublished Letter of George Washington,” S.C. Hist. and Geneal. Mag., XXXIX (1938), 152–3.