Benjamin Franklin Papers

To Benjamin Franklin from Thomas Pownall, 20 November 1766

From Thomas Pownall

ALS: American Philosophical Society

Westrop. Novr. 20. 66

Dear Sir

I am scarce forgiven by Lady Fawkener8 for not bringing you down with me to this place. She bids me say that she had flattered her with the hopes of seing you here. I have told her of your promise to come at Xmass and if you don’t keep your word I shall be ruined.

You was so good to say that you would forward the enclosed for me. Pray be so good you will much oblige me. I have not a frank and all our neighbours who belong to the house are out of the Way so that I have not a frank.9 I am ashamed to putt you to the Expence of a packet but do not know how to avoid it. I am Sir Your Obliged and Obedient Servant

T Pownall

[Note numbering follows the Franklin Papers source.]

8. The widow of the former postmaster general, Sir Everard Fawkener (above, V, 334 n). She married Pownall in 1765, but continued to be called by the title and name derived from her first husband. Charles A.W. Pownall, Thomas Pownall (London, 1908), p. 185.

9. Had one of Pownall’s neighbors who was a member of the House of Commons been available, he might have franked Pownall’s packet; he himself did not become an M.P. until the next February.

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    Franklin Papers
    Title
    To Benjamin Franklin from Thomas Pownall, 20 November 1766
    Date
    20 November 1766

    Reference

    Cite as
    “To Benjamin Franklin from Thomas Pownall, 20 November 1766,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-13-02-0190. [Original source: The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 13, January 1 through December 31, 1766, ed. Leonard W. Labaree. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1969, p. 507.]