Benjamin Franklin Papers

To Benjamin Franklin from Landais: résumé, 9 January 1780

From Landais

ALS: American Philosophical Society

<Paris, January 9, 1780, in French: Please certify to be a true copy the following extracts of J.P. Jones’s letter to you dated the Texel, Oct. 3, 1779.4 I am sorry to trouble your excellency again but thinking it necessary, I hope it will be granted.>

[Note numbering follows the Franklin Papers source.]

4Landais gives a French translation of several sections of Jones’s letter, beginning with “When the Fleet discovered us” to the phrase “Both Ships were set on Fire in Various Places” (XXX, 453–5). He omits, however, Jones’s statement that when he gave the signal for the line of battle, “the Alliance shewed no Attention.” He also eliminates all but the first six words of the paragraph beginning “My Battery” (XXX, 454). He concludes with the passage from “The Enemy’s Main Mast” to “the British Ship of War the Serapis” (XXX, 456–7).

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