To Benjamin Franklin from De Lolme, [c. February 1782]
From De Lolme
ALS: American Philosophical Society
[c. February, 1782]9
I wished to have the honour to see you a few days before I leave this Country, in order that you might think of what orders you intend to give me for England; and the evening being that time of the day which I can best spare, I have called here this evening; when finding you had company with you, and fearing to interrupt some business, I have desired your Servants not to mention any thing to you. I reckon I shall set out next Wednesday, and will certainly do my Self the honour to call again upon you, next Tuesday, if not before.
I am with great respect your most ob. h. Servt.
J L Delolme
9. De Lolme did not leave for England before mid-February, at least. In January, his friends in London had heard rumors that he might have been imprisoned in the Bastille as the suspected author of a piece against Vergennes in the Courier de Londres: Memoirs of the Life of Sir Samuel Romilly, written by Himself (3 vols., London, 1840), I, 197. By Feb. 16 they learned that he was still in Paris but had not been incarcerated: Jean Roget, Les Affaires de Genève, 1780–1783: Lettres de Jean Roget … (Geneva, Basel, and Paris, 1911), p. 141.