From Benjamin Franklin to Pierre du Pont de Nemours, 2 October 1770
To Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours
ALS: Henry Francis DuPont Wintherthur Museum
London, Oct. 2. 1770
Dear Sir,
I received with great Pleasure the Assurances of your kind Remembrance of me, and the Continuance of your Goodwill towards me, in your Letter by M. le Comte Chreptowitz.8 I should have been happy to have rendred him every Civility and Mark of Respect in my Power (as the Friend of those I so much respect and honour) if he had given me the Opportunity: But he did not let me see him.
Accept my sincere Acknowledgements and Thanks for the valuable Present you made me of your excellent Work on the Commerce of the India Company, which I have perused with much Pleasure and Instruction.9 It bears throughout the Stamp of your Masterly Hand, in Method, Perspicuity, and Force of Argument. The honourable Mention you have made in it of your Friend is extremely obliging. I was already too much in your Debt for Favours of that kind.
I purpose returning to America in the ensuing Summer, if our Disputes should be adjusted, as I hope they will be in the next Session of Parliament. Would to God I could take with me Messrs. Dupont, Dubourg, and some other French Friends with their good Ladies! I might then, by mixing them with my Friends in Philadelphia, form a little happy Society that would prevent my ever wishing again to visit Europe. With great and sincere Esteem and Respect, I am, Dear Sir, Your most obedient and most humble Servant
B Franklin
M. Dupont
8. Probably Joachim Chreptowicz (1729–1812), who was vice-chancellor and later chancellor of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. He was in Paris in 1769 and may well have gone to England before returning home. He is said to have possessed a brilliance that would have appealed to the French intelligentsia. Polskislownik biograficzny … (15 vols. to date, Krakow, 1935–70), III, 441–3; Constantine R. Jurgela, History of the Lithuanian Nation (New York, 1948), P. 333.
9. Du commerce et de la Compagnie des Indes … (2d ed., Amsterdam and Paris, 1769).