From Benjamin Franklin to Deborah Franklin, 3 March 1761
To Deborah Franklin
ALS: American Philosophical Society
London, March 3. 1761
My dear Child
I have wrote to you and [to]5 my Friends per Capt. Hammet.6 [My] Letters are in a little Box directed for you. There are also in the Box two Books to be delivered to Mr. Coleman.7 Hearing that another Vessel is [to] sail about the Same time,8 I write [this] by her, just to let you know [that we] are well, and have wrote fully as above. My Love to all. I am, Your affectionate Husband
B Franklin
Addressed: To / Mrs Franklin / Philadelphia / per / Capt. Lane
5. A large blot on the MS has obliterated some words; they have been supplied conjecturally.
6. No letter to DF by the Dragon, Capt. Francis Hammett, has been found.
7. William Coleman, an original member of the Junto, a trustee of the College of Philadelphia, and a justice of the Supreme Court of Pa. See above, II, 406 n. One of the books BF sent him was almost certainly Lord Kames’s Principles of Equity (Edinburgh, 1760). Writing to Kames, Oct. 21, 1761, BF said he had sent a copy to “a particular friend” who was on the Pa. Supreme Court and that BF had since received two letters from him commenting on it.
8. The Fanny, Capt. R. Lane, left London March 3 and arrived at Philadelphia April 29, according to Pa. Gaz., April 30, 1761. The vagaries of ocean crossings in this period are illustrated by the fact that the Dragon, Capt. Hammett, which sailed from London “about the same Time,” left Portsmouth only on March 31, and did not reach Philadelphia until May 24, or 25 days behind the Fanny. Pa. Gaz., May 28, 1761.