From Benjamin Franklin to Gourlade & Moylan, 7 September 1780
To Gourlade & Moylan
Copy: Library of Congress
Passy, Sept. 7 1780.
Gentlemen,
There have been presented to me for Acceptance, within these few Days. The following Drafts of yours on me: viz:
| For 1246. l.t. 10. in favr. of M. Boy |  |
Datet 23d Augt. 1780. |
| For 1186. l.t. 19 in favr. of M. Quartresages |
& For 900 l.t.— in favor of M. Termier lainé, dated 25. Augt. 80.3
They are all drawn at two Usances, and said to be on Acct. of the frigate l’Ariel.— I have accepted them nothwithstanding I have not recd. any Advice concerning them. This is contrary to my general Rule, and I desire you will immediately furnish me with the Account on which they are founded; & that in future you would always do so, previous to your drawing upon me.
Pray inform me if Capt. Jones has sailed, & if not what it is that detains him.
Messrs. Gourlade et Moylan.
3. These three bills are listed on WTF’s roster of bills drawn on BF by Gourlade & Moylan (for which see our annotation of BF to the firm, July 5). The signature of Louis Quatrefages must have been difficult to read; WTF also mistook it. He was one of the principal merchants of Lorient, and chef des magasins: Lüthy, Banque protestante, II, 454; Almanach des marchands, pp. 295–6; Gérard Le Bouëdec, Le Port et L’arsenal de Lorient …, (5 vols., Paris, 1994), II, 187. The merchant families of Boy and Fermier are both cited in Le Bouëdec, Le Port de L’arsenal de Lorient, II, 186.