To Benjamin Franklin from James Lovell, 9 July 1779
From James Lovell8
ALS: American Philosophical Society (three), University of Pennsylvania Library;9 copy and transcript: National Archives
Philada. July 9th. 1779
Honble. Sir
I send by this Opportunity Journals & Gazettes with some Letters which were to have gone by Way of Martinique some time ago with others that I hope will reach you by that Channel. I add a Compleat Set of the Journals as far as they are printed viz 1st. Vol 2d Vol and from Jany. to June 12th. this year with two spare Pamphlets of Ns. 2. 3. 11. 12 to make those already sent compleat.1
Perhaps I may have the honor of writing again before the Vessel2 sails out tho she is now falling down the River.
Your most humb Servant
James Lovell
Honble. Doctor Franklin.
Notations in different hands: James Lovell Phyladelphie 9. juillet 1779. / Tripl: June 13 Dup July 9
8. Writing on behalf of the committee for foreign affairs of the Continental Congress, of which he was a member. With this letter Lovell enclosed a copy of his of June 13 (XXIX, 683).
9. Marked “4plicate” and “by Capt. Sapet.” One of the ALS at the APS is marked “3plicate” and includes a triplicate of his July 16 letter. They contain numerous minor variations.
1. For publication data about these journals of Congress see Charles Evans et al., compilers, American Bibliography … (14 vols., Chicago and Worcester, 1903–59), VI, 51–2.
2. The French ship Victorieux, carrying dispatches from Gérard: Smith, Letters, XIII, 182–3. Copies of the committee for foreign affairs’July 10 letters to her captain, Sapet, are at the National Archives. On Aug. 13 the ship’s owners, Mercy & Lacaze & fils of Cadiz, report the ship has arrived and her captain has delivered papers for BF to the French consul there. They plan to send the ship back to Philadelphia, where they hope to found a branch of their firm under Messrs Lacaze and Mallet (who accompanied the ship on her first voyage). They ask BF’s recommendations for the new firm and also for the Baltimore firm of Terrasson & Poey, in which the Cadiz partners are also interested. APS. Meanwhile, Lacaze and Mallet had become involved in a serious dispute stemming from their sale of part of the Victorieux’s cargo to Robert Morris: Hubertis Cummings, “Robert Morris and the Episode of the Polacre ‘Victorious,’” PMHB LXX (1946), 240–1.