From Benjamin Franklin to Deborah Franklin, 16 February 1768
To Deborah Franklin
ALS: Nationalbibliothek, Vienna
London, Feb. 16. 1768
My dear Child
I wrote to you per Packet, and also by Mr. Ayres, 5 who goes in Sparks. But I must send you a Line per Capt. Falkener, and another per Capt. Story, 6 if ’tis only to say over again that I am well, and to acknowledge the Receipt of your kind Letters and Presents of Meal, Apples, Nuts, Cranberries &c.
I have written to Sally too by Mr. Ayres, My Love to her and all Friends. I can now only add, that I am Your ever loving Husband
B Franklin
The chief of my Letters7 will go per Story, who sails this Week.
5. William Ayers (or Ayres) became a missionary for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel; he crossed to England, was ordained by the Bishop of London in Dec., 1767, sailed for Philadelphia the following February, and was assigned to the new mission of Spotswood and Freehold, N.J., where he remained until 1798; he then returned to Philadelphia, and died c. 1816. PMHB, XII (1888), 212; Nelson R. Burr, The Anglican Church in New Jersey (Philadelphia, [1954]), pp. 581–2. He was probably the same William Ayers who in 1762 married Elizabeth Rush, the mistress of the Negro school in Philadelphia from 1764 to May, 1768. 2 Pa. Arch., VIII, 19; PMHB, LXIII (1939), 288, 290.
6. Captains James Sparks, Enoch Story, and Nathaniel Falconer, masters respectively of the Mary and Elizabeth, Unity, and Pennsylvania Packet, sailed together on Feb. 19, 1768. Pa. Chron., April 18–25, 1768.
7. BF to DF below, Feb. 20, 1768.