To Benjamin Franklin from [Richard Henry Alexander?] Bennet, [1769?]
From [Richard Henry Alexander?] Bennet3
AL: American Philosophical Society
St. James’s Street Tuesday night [1769?]
Mr. Bennet presents his Comp[limen]ts to Doctor Franklin and returns him many thanks for the Honor of his very obliging Present which he esteems infinitely.
3. The writer and date are equally conjectural. The Bennet to whom we have assigned the note was an F.R.S. and a co-sponsor, with BF, of the nomination of William Hewson to the Society in December, 1769; Bennet’s signature on becoming an F.R.S. is much like the handwriting of the note; he lived on the way from London to Bromley, where BF frequently visited the Hawkesworths. Notes and Queries, 11th ser., 1 (1910), 198, 238, 311, 370–2; The Signatures in the First Journal-Book and the Charter-Book of the Royal Society (London, 1912), p. 30. These slender clues are the only grounds for our ascription. As for the date, we are guessing that Bennet is acknowledging BF’s gift of a copy of the fourth edition of Exper. and Obser., published early in 1769.