From Benjamin Franklin to Henry Bouquet, 14 April 1757
To Henry Bouquet8
Draft: American Philosophical Society
New York April 14. 1757
Dear Sir
I thank you for the Letter you have favour’d me with to Professor Koenig.9 I shall take care to deliver the other to Monsr. Guinand,1 if I reach London.
I regret much, that thro’ your Business and mine, I could enjoy so little of your Conversation at Philadelphia. How happy are the Folks in Heaven, who, ’tis said, have nothing to do, but to talk with one another, except now and then a little Singing—and Drinking of Aqua Vitae.
We are going different ways, and perhaps may never meet, till we meet there. I pity you for the hot Summer you must first undergo in Charlestown. I do all I can for your Relief, by recommending you to an ingenious Physician2 of my Acquaintance, who knows the Rule of making cool, weak, refreshing Punch, not inferior to the Nectar of the Gods.
Just now I presume to make a Prayer to them, That whatever I wish for my Friends, shall come to pass. If this Prayer be granted, you may be sure of a pleasant Voyage, an agreable Campaign, Health, Honour and Happiness. But why should I think such Praying and Wishing necessary. The Gods will doubtless take Care of those they love. A Dieux then, Dear Sir, and believe me with Sincere Esteem, Respect and Affection, Your most obedient and most humble Servant
B Franklin
8. On Col. Henry Bouquet, who had commanded the first battalion of the Royal American Regiment in Philadelphia the previous winter but was now ordered to South Carolina, see above, pp. 63 n, 147.
9. Probably Samuel Koenig (1712–1757), German-born professor of mathematics at The Hague and member of several learned societies on the Continent.
1. Possibly Henry Guinand, a London merchant, declared bankrupt in 1769; referred to in 1783 at the marriage of his daughter as “the late Hen. G. esq. of Calcutta.” Gent. Mag., XXXIX (1769), 511; LIII (1783), 715. The Swiss instrument maker and optician of this surname, whom Smyth (Writings, X, 555) seems to identify as the man referred to, was too young, having been born about 1745.
2. BF first wrote: “to two ingenious Physicians”; see the letters to Garden and Lining immediately below. The expert on concocting punch was probably Dr. Garden; BF and Dr. Lining are not known to have met personally at this time and testimonial on the punch seems too enthusiastic to have been based on mere hearsay.