From Benjamin Franklin to Paolo Frisi, 20 September 1784
To Paolo Frisi
ALS: British Library
Passy, Sept. 20. 1784.
Sir,
I received with great Pleasure the Line you were pleased to write to me by the Chevalier Castiglioni, and am oblig’d to you for making me acquainted with a Gentleman so intelligent and so amiable.—2 If in his American Travels I can be of any Service to him, he may command me, on his own Account as well as in respect to your Recommendation.—3 The Present you propose to make of your Works to our Academy at Philadelphia, will be very acceptable, for they must be useful.— With great Esteem I have the honour to be, Sir, Your most obedient & most humble Servant
B Franklin
P. Frisi
2. Frisi’s letter of May 30, 1784, introduced the young botanist, who was planning to tour the United States: XLII, 286–7.
3. Castiglioni wrote to Frisi on Oct. 25 from London that BF had furnished him with “letters for London and more distant regions.” BF recommended Castiglioni to Benjamin Rush (below, Oct. 14) and possibly to Joseph Banks, who in his letter of Nov. 19, below, echoed BF’s favorable impression: Luigi Castiglioni’s Viaggio: Travels in the United States of North America, 1785–87, trans. and ed. Antonio Pace (Syracuse, N.Y., 1983), p. xviii.