To Benjamin Franklin from John MacMahon, 25 March 1783
From John MacMahon
ALS: American Philosophical Society
March the 25th: 1783
Dear and Honourable sir
The Lady who intends to wait upon you with this letter is Daughter to an Irish Gentleman Sir Walter Rutledge, and married to a French Officer M. le Chevalier D’Herbigny.6 She is related to Mr. Rutledge of America,7 who was, I think and perhaps is still in Congress. She wants to obtain a favour that depends upon M. le Comte De Vergennes, and begged me to introduce her to you to obtain a recommendation to the Minister. If you can render her that good Office, as a Relation to a Member of Congress, it will be rendring an essential Service to a Lady of real merit, and a very great obligation conferred upon Dear and Honourable sir your most humble and obedient Servant
J. Mac Mahon
MD. P.
Addressed: To / The Honourable Dr Benjamin / Franklin Minister Plenipotentiary / to the united states of North America / at Passy
Notation: Mac Mahon 25 Mars 1783.
6. Marie-Julie Rutledge d’Herbigny, whose March 26 letter is below, was the daughter of a Dunkirk merchant and banker. Her husband was Nicolas-Remi Favart d’Herbigny (Nicolas-Rémy de Favart), a captain and engineer in the French army who received the title Chevalier de Saint-Louis in 1781: DBF, under Favart d’Herbigny; Anne Blanchard, Dictionnaire des ingénieurs militaires 1691–1791 (Montpellier, 1981), pp. 274–5; Richard Hayes, Biographical Dictionary of Irishmen in France (Dublin, 1949), pp. 280–1.
7. John Rutledge of South Carolina (XXVII, 67), who had been a member of the First and Second Continental Congresses and governor of South Carolina, and from 1782 to 1784 served as a member of Congress: ANB.