From Benjamin Franklin to Daniel Lathrop Coit, 14 January 1784
To Daniel Lathrop Coit9
Printed invitation with MS insertions:1 Johns Hopkins University Library
[January 14, 1784]
Dr. Franklin requests the honour of Mr. Coit’s Company at Dinner on Sunday the 18. Inst
The favour of an Answer is desired.
Addressed: A Monsieur / Monsieur Coit. chez / Mr. Carter2 / Hotel d’Angleterre / Rue des Filles St Thomas.
Endorsed: Doctr. Franklin’s Billet to Dine
9. Daniel Lathrop Coit (1754–1833), a merchant of Norwich, Conn., sailed to England in May, 1783, and went to Paris at the end of October. He witnessed the Dec. 1 manned balloon ascension (which he described in a letter published in the Norwich Packet, Feb. 26, 1784) and the Dec. 14 illuminations in honor of the peace. While in Paris he also met Lafayette. What survives of his diary of the trip does not extend beyond December: William C. Gilman, A Memoir of Daniel Lathrop Coit of Norwich, Connecticut, 1754–1833 (Norwich, Conn., 1907), pp. 6–25, 67; Daniel Lathrop Coit, “Diary of a trip to Europe,” Conn. Hist. Soc.
1. L’Air de Lamotte filled in the invitation and WTF supplied the address. An earlier example of this invitation is illustrated in XXXIX, facing p. 409.
2. John Carter (John Barker Church): XXXVIII, 546n; XL, 264n.