To Benjamin Franklin from Joseph Smith, 13 May 1774
From Joseph Smith
ALS: American Philosophical Society
Burlington 13 May 1774
Respected Friend
The Governor lately communicated to me an extract of a Letter from thee to him, wherein thee desires I woud remit thee what money I have received on thy account; I have accordingly purchased the inclosed James & Drinkers Draughts on Pigou & Booth for £200 sterling Exchange 167 ½ is £335 Currency to thy Debit. There remains in my hands upwards of [torn] Currency which with what money I may hereafter receive shall be apply’d as thee may direct.5
The Bearer hereof Wm Dillwyn of this Place a particular friend of mine, goes Passenger in this Ship.6 I should be much Oblig’d to thee for thy kind Notice of him, or any act of friendship it may fall in thy way to do him, Being with great Respect and Esteem Thy Ready Friend
Jos. Smith
Doctr Franklin
Copy. with 2nd Bill for £200 sterling
5. Smith, the former secretary of the committee of correspondence, had been holding BF’s salary as New Jersey agent: above, XX, 73. In 1775 he remitted to him an additional £150 1s. 2d. in Pennsylvania currency: Jour., p. 60. The prominent Philadelphia Quaker firm of Abel James and Henry Drinker has frequently appeared before; Pigou & Booth was a mercantile house in Mark Lane, London.
6. Dillwyn (1743–1824), a Quaker who had moved as a young man from Philadelphia to Burlington, was a pupil and friend of Anthony Benezet and the author of Brief Considerations on Slavery, and the Expediency of Its Abolition … (Burlington, N.J., 1773). Benezet characterized him, in a letter he gave him for John Wesley, as “a valuable, religiously minded person”: George S. Brookes, Friend Anthony Benezet (Philadelphia, 1937), p. 318. Dillwyn was acquainted with DF and her family and carried word of them: BF to RB below, July 22. In 1775 he returned for a time to America, then spent the rest of his life in England. Hinshaw, Amer. Quaker Genealogy, II, 215, 506; Charles P. Keith, The Provincial Councillors of Pennsylvania … (Philadelphia, 1883), p. 28 of second pagination.