To Benjamin Franklin from Thomas Tabb Bolling, [7 December?] 1784
From Thomas Tabb Bolling1
AL: American Philosophical Society
Tuesday morning [December 7?, 1784]2
Mr. Bolling’s compliments to Doctor Franklin and is sorry it is out of his power to wait upon him before he leaves Paris, which will be on Friday: but has taken the liberty to request him to send by the bearer the letter of recommendation he has been good enough to promise to procure him for Orleans.
[In a different hand.] hotel de Montgomerie Rue du Colombier faubourgt St. Germain
Addressed: Doctor Franklin / Minisr. Plenre. des Etats Unis / A Passy
Notation: Bolling—
1. We have no record of when Bolling arrived in France or who introduced him to BF. The 21-year-old scion of a prominent Va. family had fought in the Revolution and was now, it seems, planning to study mathematics. The recommendation he here requests was obtained, though the recipient is not known: Bolling to BF, Dec. 24, below; Alexander R. Bolling, Jr., The Bolling Family: Eight Centuries of Growth (Baltimore, 1990), pp. 52, 57, 62, 124; Philip Slaughter, A History of Bristol Parish, Va., … (2nd ed., Richmond, 1879), pp. 140–2.
2. A likely Tuesday, given Bolling’s account (in the Dec. 24 letter cited above) of his activities since arriving in Orléans.