To Benjamin Franklin from Samuel Hubbart, 12 February 1782
From Samuel Hubbart9
ALS: American Philosophical Society
Mill Prison Plymouth
Feby: 12. 1781 [i.e., 1782]
Honor’d Sir
I take this opportunity to Acquaint you of my misfortune in being taken in the Wexford Privateer & sent into this Place.1 When I left home my Fathers family was well. I am badly of for Cloths & Money if you should think fit to supply me with some shall take it as a great favour Conferr’d on me.
Your Hble Servant
Saml. Hubbart
Addressed: To / Honble / Benja: Franklin Esqr / att / Paris
Notation: Humbart, Feby. 12 1781
9. The thirteen-year-old son of BF’s stepnephew Thomas Hubbart (I, lviii). Samuel’s aunt Catharine Ray Greene wrote to BF on May 8 of the lad’s capture; he had sailed from Boston, and she assumed he was imprisoned in Ireland (APS). The present letter, according to Hubbart’s next one of March 20 (APS), was carried by John F. Williams, who also carried other letters relating to prisoners: JW to BF, Feb. 27(?), below.
1. “Misfortune” is an understatement. The Wexford was captured by H.M.S. Recovery on Sept. 29, 1781, and a portion of her crew was imprisoned at Kinsale. By late January, 1782, seventeen of those men had died. A number of others (including Hubbart) were transferred to Mill Prison: XXXV, 655–6; Richmond Springer to JW, June 17, 1782 (APS); Kaminkow, Mariners, p. 95; C. J. F. MacCarthy, “The American Prisoners at Kinsale,” Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaelogical Society, 2nd ser., XCIV (1989), 46.