To Benjamin Franklin from Samuel Wharton, [19 May 1769]: résumé
From [Samuel] Wharton
AL: American Philosophical Society
[Dated merely Friday; probably May 19, 1769. A note in the third person: is sorry to inform Franklin that the New York mail, according to Mr. Todd, was made up and dispatched on Wednesday night, when the letters for the governors were received from the various officers. The Captain sails for New York on Monday.8]
8. We are assuming that Wharton referred to Hillsborough’s circular letter to the colonial governors, and separate letters to Gov. Moore and Sir William Johnson, dated May 13 (1 N.J. Arch., X, 109–10; N.Y. Col. Docs., VIII, 164–6); if bureaucracy for once moved fast, they would have been ready for mailing by Wednesday, May 17. On the following weekend two ship captains sailed for New York: N.-Y. Gaz., and Weekly Mercury, July 17, 24, 1769. For Wharton’s and William Trent’s mission to England see the final note on WF to BF above, Jan. 31. Wharton had been scheduled to sail at the end of January (I N.J. Arch., X, 97), so that by this time he had presumably been in London for something over two months. Trent did not join him until the end of May: PMHB, LXXIV (1950), 48.