To Benjamin Franklin from John Sargent, 19 June 1760
From John Sargent6
ALS: American Philosophical Society
Thursday 19 June [1760]7
Dear Sir
I shall be heartily glad to see You at Mayplace on Sunday—or Saturday—and at all Times.
Alas Quebeck! I little thought that We should have to mingle our Sighs for that, when We met.
What a Barbarism in a General threatned with a Siege, to go out to fight Those who found[?] themselves strong enough to undertake forceing Him in his Fastness! There never was such Folly!8
Adieu—I will not dwell on these unpleasing Subjects. May We meet in Health! Yours most sincerely
J Sargent
6. See above, VII, 322 n.
7. Sargent’s anxiety about Quebec dates this letter in 1760. London Chron., June 17–19, 1760, reported that Brig. Gen. James Murray had sallied from Quebec with 3000 men and attacked a French army “supposed to consist of the greatest part of the force of Canada, as they were on their march to make an attempt against the said place.” Defeated with heavy losses, Murray retired to the city to prepare to resist a siege.
8. Horace Walpole commented to Sir Horace Mann, June 27, 1760: “Who the deuce was thinking of Quebec? America was like a book one has read and done with but here we are on a sudden reading our book backwards. … The year 1760 is not the year 1759.” Wilmarth S. Lewis et al., eds., The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole’s Correspondence, XXI (New Haven, 1960), 414.