From Benjamin Franklin to Joseph Galloway, 26 February 1760
To Joseph Galloway
ALS: Yale University Library
London, Feb. 26. 1760
Dear Sir,
The above is a Copy of mine per Capt. House2 Since which I have receiv’d your Favour of Jan. 8. but one you mention to have wrote of Dec. 2. is not come to hand.3 Nothing material has pass’d in our Affairs since my last,4 the Proprietor not having yet presented the Laws.5 They are at present under Consideration of our Council on both sides.6 You desire some Information relating to the Stocks. They are now about 20 per Cent. below Par, or what it is suppos’d they will be on a Peace. For Instance £100 Stock that bears 3 per Cent. Interest, payable at the Bank half yearly, may now be bought for £80 or thereabouts; and on a Peace it is thought the same will sell for the full £100 and perhaps something more. I have laid out most of the Money I had here in the Stocks,7 in hopes of this Advantage, some Interest, tho’ low, arising in the meantime and a Peace it is thought we must have next Year. If you incline to employ any Money in the same Way, I shall readily serve you, on Request, in transacting the Affair.8 My Son joins his best Wishes, with those of Dear Sir, Your affectionate Friend and humble Servant
B Franklin
2. See above, pp. 15–17.
3. Neither of these letters has been found.
4. Presumably that of Jan. 9, 1760, mentioned in the first sentence.
5. On March 13, 1760, Thomas Penn’s agent, Henry Wilmot (above, p. 16 n), presented to the King in Council eighteen acts passed by the Pa. Assembly during 1758–59. Earlier, on Feb. 16, 1760, BF himself had presented the act passed by the Assembly on Sept. 29, 1759 (above, VIII, 442 n), appointing him agent to receive the province’s share of the parliamentary grant for 1758. Statutes at Large, Pa., V, 660. For the Penn’s opposition to eleven of these nineteen acts, see below, pp. 125–130.
6. BF’s solicitor was Francis Eyre during the hearings on the nineteen Pa. acts and his counsel were Richard Jackson and William de Grey; the proprietors’ solicitor was Henry Wilmot and their counsel were the attorney and solicitor general, Sir Charles Pratt and Charles Yorke. See below, p. 128 n.
7. On March 15, 1759, BF bought £1575 of the 3 percent annuities of 1759. Apparently this was all that he purchased for his own account during his first mission, although on April 12, 1759, he bought 15 lottery tickets associated with the stock at £10 each, and at various times also purchased stock for Isaac Norris and for the province and transferred some of his own holdings to Norris. “Account of Expences,” pp. 25, 26, 28, 42, 44, 49, 50, 52, 53, 58, 60, 62, 63: PMHB, LV (1931), 117, 118–19, 125, 126–7, 129, 130, 131, 132.
8. Galloway seems not to have availed himself of this offer.