Benjamin Franklin Papers
Documents filtered by: Recipient="Deane, Silas" AND Correspondent="Franklin, Benjamin"
sorted by: editorial placement
Permanent link for this document:
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-23-02-0137

Jonathan Williams, Jr., to the American Commissioners, 23 January 1777

Jonathan Williams, Jr., to the American Commissioners

ALS: American Philosophical Society

Nantes. Jan. 23. 1777.

Gentlemen

I have the pleasure to inform you that the last Lighter went to the Ship3 yesterday afternoon on board of which are all the provisions &c. except live Stock, which will be bought at Painbeuf. She is cleared at the Custom house and I hope will have all ready to heave up her anchor by monday. I shall go to her on sunday morning to give a last look and hope to see her undersail before I leave her. After this (my Business being finished) I shall set off for Paris unless I receive further Commands, in which Case, be it here or in any other Port, I shall obey with chearfulness and do my utmost to give you satisfaction. I am impatient to hear that the amphitrite is gone. We had a tolerable wind yesterday but it might not have reach’d L’orient. I gave mons. DuCoudray a Copy of the general Instructions when he went away, to be sure that the want of them should be no Cause of Detention.4

Having nothing more than what I have already written, I conclude with assuring you that I am very respectfully Gentlemen your most obedient Servant

J Williams Junr

The Honourable The Deputies of The United States.

Notation: Mr Williams Nantes 23rd. Jany. 1777

[Note numbering follows the Franklin Papers source.]

3The Mercure.

4This statement clears up a misunderstanding of Deane’s. He complained that Du Coudray had brought the ship’s papers with him to Paris, thereby delaying her departure; Du Coudray said that he had left them with the ship. Deane Papers, I, 465, 467; Du Coudray to Congress, Jan. 26, 1777, National Archives. Both were apparently right: he took a copy of the papers and left the originals.

Index Entries