1To Benjamin Franklin from David Williams, 4 September 1778 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : American Philosophical Society You will see by these Proposals that I persevere in the prosecution of a Plan, which you seemed willing to support while in England. I have apprized you of the various Steps I have taken in my Letters to you in America; some of which I am told you have received. And I sent you two of the Liturgies, but by such conveyances that I doubt of their having...
2To Benjamin Franklin from D[avid Williams], [between 16 and 31 August 1775] (Franklin Papers)
ALS : American Philosophical Society As some relief to you in your present circumstances, I wish you could have seen with what pleasure your letter to me, was read Yesterday by our friendly Society. We are removed from Slaughters T. to the Swan at Westminster bridge. We have made a valuable addition to our number in Mr. Raspe whom you have seen in Germany, and who has been here a few weeks. He...
3From Benjamin Franklin to David Williams, 21 February 1774 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : Yale University Library This letter and Franklin’s brief note below, May 9, are to the best of our knowledge his only correspondence while in England with a man who later claimed to have played a brief but significant role in his life there. The Rev. David Williams (1738–1816) was a Welsh dissenting clergyman who established a school in Chelsea in 1772. He had by then abandoned...
4From Benjamin Franklin to David Williams, 9 May 1774 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : American Philosophical Society I had a full Purpose of coming out to you this Day, but unforeseen Hindrances have occurr’d: I should then have thank’d you and good Mrs. Williams in person, in behalf of Mrs. Hewson and Mrs. Stevenson, for your exceeding kind and friendly Offer, of which they have the most grateful Sense. Their Situation does not permit them at present to leave home; but...