To Benjamin Franklin from William Lee, 3 April 1775
From William Lee2
ALS: American Philosophical Society
London 3 Apl. 1775.
Dear Sir.
I wrote you the other day about an hundred pounds which the Constitutional Society here had orderd to be given for releif of the poor sufferers in Boston and now inclose you Mr. Olivers letter respecting that business.3 I presume you are fully informed from other hands of all the public transactions here since you left us. Therefore shall only beg you to believe me to be sincerely and with the highest esteem Dear Sir Your most Obliged and Obedient Humble Servant
William Lee
Addressed: To / Doctor Benjamin Franklin Esqr. / L.L.D. / Philadelphia / via Maryland
Endorsed: W Lee Esqr April 3. 75
2. The brother of Arthur and Richard Henry Lee, who made a name for himself in London politics: above, XX, 308 n.
3. Lee’s earlier letter, and the enclosure in this one, have disappeared. Alderman Richard Oliver, M.P. (1735–84), was a former supporter of Wilkes, but broke with him in 1771 and became a founder of the Constitutional Society: DNB; Namier and Brooke, House of Commons, III, 224. In February the Society had voted £100 for the Bostonians; Oliver had presented the money to BF, who had returned his thanks. London Chron., Feb. 9–11; London Evening Post, Feb. 21–3, 1775. Lee is here alluding to a second donation of the same amount, voted on March 21: Public Advertiser, March 23, 1775. BF sent the first gift, as a draft on London, by Josiah Quincy, Jr., in mid-March, and transmitted what we presume was the second by another draft, which he gave to John and Samuel Adams in Philadelphia but which they did not forward to London; he subsequently paid the money in Mass. Memorandum Book (above, VII, 167–8), entries of Aug. 2 and Nov. 20, 1775.