From Benjamin Franklin to Schweighauser, 11 June 1781
To Schweighauser
Copy: Library of Congress
Passy, June 11. 1781
Sir,
I have received your favour of the 7th. inclosing your Account, and advising me of your Drafts upon me for the same, which I shall duly honour.6
I have already furnish’d Mr. Robert Beverly Chew, with as much Money as I could afford, considering the Numbers that apply to me.7 You may if that will be acceptable furnish him with another Gunea. But not a farthing more to the Lee you mention, whom I take to be a John Lee, who pretended to be Brother to a Merchant at Newbury Port in New-England, and whom from his various and inconsistent Stories, I take to be an Impostor.8
I have the Honour to be, with great Regard, Sir, &c
Mr. Schweighauser.
6. We have not located Schweighauser’s letter. On June 25 Grand paid ten bills of Schweighauser’s totaling 23,272 l.t., 1 s., 6 d.: Account XXVII (XXXII, 4).
7. See Chew’s June 13 letter and for April, 1781, payments to him of seven louis see XXXIV, 3, 7.
8. On March 12 BF had provided Lee with five louis: XXXIV, 7. There was a Newburyport merchant named Joseph Lee: John J. Currier, History of Newburyport, Mass 1764–1905 (2 vols., Newburyport, 1906–09), I, 620.