To Benjamin Franklin from Vergennes, 18 July 1779
From Vergennes
L (draft):6 Archives du Ministère des affaires étrangères; copy: Library of Congress
a Versles le 18 Juilt. 1779.
Jai lhonneur de vous envoyer ci-joint, M, copie d’une lettre de M. de Sartine; vous y verrez les ordres donnés au sujet des effets du Sr. Samüel Warthon.7
J’ai l’hr
M Franklin
6. In the hand of Joseph-Mathias Gérard de Rayneval.
7. A month earlier BF had forwarded to Vergennes a memoir by Samuel Wharton on behalf of two would-be emigrants to America whose effects had been impounded by customs officials at Dieppe: XXIX, 574–6, 681. A copy of the enclosure, Sartine to Vergennes of July 12, is at the Library of Congress. In it Sartine expressed surprise that the effects were being held, since the ship from which they had been taken as English was actually a smuggling ship for which a Boulogne merchant had stood security. He has ordered that they be released to Wharton. Two weeks after the present letter BF issued a passport to one of the potential emigrants, Thomas Burdy: below, Aug. 2.