From Benjamin Franklin to John Bondfield, 25 February 1779
To John Bondfield
Copy: Library of Congress
Passy feb. 25 1779
Sir
I have before me yours of the 19th & 20th inst. I receiv’d also yours of the 16th per M. Bory to whom I shall on your Recommendation shew every Civility in my Power.2
I return accepted your two Drafts of 12000 Livres each as also the Congress Draft for 300£.
I think our People mad to give such a Price for Madeira. I hope the Bordeaux you send will be so good as to alter their Taste.
The three Bills of 20 Pounds each drawn by the Officers of the Hornet & Alfred are also return’d enclos’d.3
According to your Desire, I send to M. Haywood at M. Schweighauser’s the Commission for the Mary Fearon, Capt. John Fulford, with the blank obligations to be sign’d there.4 I wish her Success and am Sir &c.
M. John Bondfield
2. Those of Feb. 16 and 20 are above, but that of the 19th is missing.
3. The officers of the Hornet and Alfred had been confined in Forton prison; several escaped during the summer of 1778 and were given money by the commissioners. See XXVII, 190–1, 238.
4. As Bondfield had requested in his letter of the 20th.