To Benjamin Franklin from Thomas Lloyd, 9 July 1783
From Thomas Lloyd5
ALS: American Philosophical Society
Rouen 9 July 1783
Hond. Sir
You’ll please to let my situation beg your excuse for this trouble, the Gentleman to whom the enclosed is addressed I know not how to direct to, because my baggage is gone on for Calais & with it his instructions on this head. It being of moment to him, & your polite disposition will be a early conveyance—
Had I it in my power to have reached Paris I was order’d to Make Mr & Mrs. Hillegas’s respects to you and the Young Ladies who are all well.6 Permit me to have the honor of assuring I am with respect Hond Sir Yours
Thomas Lloyd
honble docr. Benj Fraklin
Addressed: the honble / Doctor Benjamin Franklin / a Passey
Notation: Thomas Lloyd Rouen 9 July 1783
5. London-born Thomas Lloyd (1756–1827) had been settled in Maryland for several years when the American Revolution broke out. He served in the Md. militia, surviving a gunshot wound and capture by the British, and after his discharge in 1779 was hired to superintend the printing of the Journals of the Continental Congress. He later became clerk to Michael Hillegas, treasurer of the United States. We know little about this trip to France, other than that he later claimed to have carried dispatches to the American peace commissioners: Marion Tinling, “Thomas Lloyd’s Reports of the First Federal Congress,” W&MQ, 3rd ser., XVIII (1961), 521–3, 543.
6. Michael and Henrietta Hillegas and their daughters Margaret, Henrietta, Deborah, and Mary Ann: Emma St. Clair Whitney, Michael Hillegas and His Descendants (Pottsville, Pa., 1891), p. 35; William Henry Egle, “Michael Hillegas. First Treasurer of the United States,” PMHB, XI (1887), 408.