To Benjamin Franklin from Jonathan Williams, Jr., 27 November 1781
From Jonathan Williams, Jr.
ALS: American Philosophical Society
Nantes Nov. 27. 1781.
Dear & hond sir.
I have received your Favour of the Inst3 per Mr Witherspoon. I gave it to your good Friend Capt All, who had heard with Pain what I before wrote to you, & who now rejoices at the Opportunity of confounding malicious Tongues.4
I send you inclosed a Newspaper in order to shew you the inhumane Conduct of Lord Rawdon, now a prisoner in Paris.5 I do not expect to have him delivered up to suffer a similar Fate, tho’ I think he deserves it, but I wish the Court of France may know what a Butcher they have in their Possession.
I am as ever Your dutifull & affectionate Kinsman
Jona Williams J
Notation: Williams Jona. Nov. 27. 1781.
3. Nov. 19, above.
4. Isaac All, related to BF by marriage, had been in France since August: XII, 31n; XXXV, 338. For the portside rumors of BF’s treasonous actions, and his response, see JW’s letter of Nov. 10 and BF’s reply of Nov. 19, above.
5. Called a “noble Butcher” by Benjamin Rush, Rawdon had concurred in the execution of Colonel of Militia Isaac Hayne on Aug. 4, 1781: Richard K. Showman et al., The Papers of General Nathanael Greene (11 vols. to date, Chapel Hill, N.C., 1976–), IX, 242, 251–2n, 324. He was captured by a French privateer later that month on his way from South Carolina to Britain: ibid., VIII, 152–3n; IX, 205n, 280, 281n.