Benjamin Franklin Papers
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From Benjamin Franklin to David Hall, 9 April 1761

To David Hall

ALS: Boston Public Library

London, April 9. 1761

Dear Friend,

I receiv’d yours of Feb. 9. with the Bill for £200 for which I thank you. I shall take care to send the Lower Case Brevier r’s, that you write for and acquaint Mr. Strahan with what you mention.1 The Loss of Faulkner and Lutwydge has baulkt Correspondence between Philadelphia and London a great deal.2 I lately receivd the enclos’d from Edinburgh, and sent the Answer you will find copy’d on the Back.3 I cannot but blame Messrs. Scot and McMichael, for continuing to draw on such Correspondents, after what pass’d last Year,4 and think they ought now to suffer a little. As the Goods you order’d from Mr. Balfour were or would be sent,5 I judg’d your Affairs would not suffer by my not taking it up, for otherwise I should have done it. I hope you will not disapprove my Conduct in this Respect, being, dear Friend, Yours affectionately

B Franklin

Addressed: To / Mr David Hall / Printer / Philadelphia / Via Boston Free B Franklin

Endorsed: Mr. Franklin April 9. 1761.

In another hand: For Perusal.

1For Hall’s letter of Feb. 9, 1761, in which the foregoing matters are mentioned, see above, pp. 273–4.

2The Friendship, Capt. Nathaniel Falconer, which cleared Philadelphia in the latter part of December 1760, was taken by a French privateer and carried into Bayonne. Pa. Gaz., Dec. 25, 1760, April 30, 1761. The General Wall packet, Capt. Walter Lutwidge, which sailed from New York, March 3, 1761, was attacked on March 20 “150 Leagues to the Westward of the Lizard” by the Biscayen privateer, Capt. LaFargue. After a “stout Engagement of three Hours and an Half” during which Lutwidge was mortally wounded, the General Wall threw her mail overboard and struck her colors. After paying a ransom of £600, she was allowed to sail for Falmouth, arriving there on March 25, 1761. N.-Y. Mercury, March 9, 1761; Pa. Gaz., May 21, 1761; London Chron., March 26–8, 28–31, 1761.

3John Balfour’s letter of March 26, 1761, and BF’s reply of April 2, regarding a bill of exchange drawn by Scott & McMichael of Philadelphia on George and James Portis of London which Hall had bought and sent to Balfour and which had been protested. See above, pp. 295, 298.

4On the Portises’ refusal in 1760 to pay two bills of Scott & McMichael which Hall had bought and sent to BF, see above, p. 34 n.

5In his letter of March 26 Balfour had told BF of receiving a further order for books from Hall and that he had already sent “a good Cargo of Bibles.”

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