To Benjamin Franklin from Alexander Fleming, 4 September 1780
From Alexander Fleming5
ALS: American Philosophical Society
Kirkliston Near Edine 4 Septr 1780
Sir
The great & important transactions You have for some Years been engaged in, will perhaps have totally extripated from your Memory the least Remembrance of me, or my Name— I had the honor to Spend some days with You, & My friends Mesrs Henry Marchant, Edd Church & J Stewart at Glasgow in Nov 1771—6 I have never had the pleasure to hear from Mr Marchant since He went to America— At that period I & many of My friends had been purposing to go to that Country upon the troubles subsiding, and as that I hope is at no great distance I have wrote, M Marchant, but not knowing any way of Conveying a letter to Him but by way of France, & totally Ignorant of Any Other direction for Him, that what I have put on the Letter, I have taken the Liberty to send it to You begging as the Most singuarly favour You may do me the honour to forward it to Him— That Heaven may preserve & protect Your Valueable life is the earnest prayer of Sir Your most Oebedient & Very humble Servant
Alexr Fleming
P.S. The inclosed well meant Pamphlet gave much satisfaction here
Notation: Allen Flemming Kirklington Sept. 4. 1780—
5. The older brother of John Fleming, a Scottish printer. John was married to the sister of Edward Church (mentioned below): J. Bennett Nolan, Benjamin Franklin in Scotland and Ireland 1759 and 1771 (Philadelphia, 1938), p. 175.
6. The Rhode Island lawyer Henry Marchant (X, 316n) had accompanied BF on his trip through Scotland in 1771. Marchant and Edward Church (XVIII, 257n) traveled together from London, joining BF in Edinburgh. According to Marchant’s diary, BF, Fleming, Church, and Mr. Stewart of Maryland dined together on Nov. 12, 1771. Stewart was probably George Stewart, eldest son of Anne Digges Stewart and Dr. George Stewart, Thomas Digges’s uncle: XVIII, xxvii, 145, 251n, and passim; Nolan, Franklin in Scotland, p. 187; Elias and Finch, Letters of Digges, p. xxiv.