To Benjamin Franklin from Edward Bridgen, 9 June 1783
From Edward Bridgen
ALS: American Philosophical Society
London June 9 1783
My Dear Sir
Your kind favour of the 22nd past9 reached my hands the 4th. Currant and I thank you for it, because it ordered the payment of arrears to the Society of Antiquaries, of which you were one of the first who has paid his arrears, after a general call ordered for the Secretary1 to make; but I undertook that office to you as some had doubted your honour.
There are several prints your due, and I think 3 or 4 Vol: of the Archiologia—also would you chuse to have the 2 or 3 Volumes preceeding purchased to make them compleat.2
Mr Hodgson paid me the 16 Guineas, & I have given him an Official receipt for the same.3
If My Worthy Friend Mr. Laurens is still with you pray Say all that is kind for me, and that I don’t answer his last as I expect to hear from him in person daily. God Bless & protect you and give you long life, & every comfort your advanced age can admit of, and be assured that I am unalterably My Dear Sir Most respectfully and Affecty. your ev hub st
Edwd: Bridgen
The Honbl Benj Franklin
Notation: E. Bridgen 9th June 1783
9. Neither this letter nor the one that must have elicited it has been located.
1. The society had two secretaries, William Norris and Thomas Morell. Bridgen was the treasurer: A List of the Society of Antiquaries of London, April 23, MDCCLXXXIII ([London], [1783]), p. 1.
2. BF joined the Society of Antiquaries on May 13, 1773: A List of the Members of the Society of Antiquaries of London … (London, 1798), p. 26. The first two volumes of its journal, Archaeologia: or Miscellaneous Tracts, Relating to Antiquity, were published in 1770 and 1773, respectively. Volumes 3 through 6 had been published since BF left England in 1775.
3. William Hodgson paid Bridgen £16 16 s. on BF’s account in June: Hodgson’s account of Oct. 24, 1783, described in XXXVII, 31n.