To Benjamin Franklin from Morellet, [31 March 1783]
From Morellet
AL: American Philosophical Society
lundi. [March 31, 1783]1
Voilà mon cher et respectable ami l’explication de vôtre medaille. Je crois avoir rempli vôtre objet qui etoit à ce que vôtre fils m’a dit non pas d’annoncer vôtre liberté votre existence politique comme entierement et completement etablies mais simplement les evenemens designès dans la medaille.2 Je ne vous verrai pas d’icy à quelques jours si vous alles à versailles ne m’oublies pas auprès de mr. de reyneval et demandès lui sil approuveroit que vous parlassies à mr. de vergennes lui même de l’interet que vous mettes à moi. Je vous salüe et je vous embrasse de tout mon cœur sans préjudice du respect que vous m’aves inspiré.
1. The day Morellet replied to the March 23 letter he received from his friend Shelburne. Shelburne had informed him of his campaign to persuade Vergennes to “promote you to some Benefice or some Abbaye,” in recognition of Morellet’s contribution to the peace settlement. One of the people Shelburne had solicited was Gérard de Rayneval, Vergennes’ premier commis. In the present letter Morellet asks BF to sound out Rayneval about an approach to Vergennes, undoubtedly on the same subject. Morellet himself met with Rayneval on April 1 at Versailles, and wrote to Shelburne immediately afterwards: Medlin, Morellet, I, 484n; see also pp. 479–80, 480–5.
2. The Libertas Americana medal had just been struck: de Cotte to BF, March 26. Morellet’s enclosure has not been found. BF must have solicited it to accompany the medals that he would present at court on Tuesday, April 8. The text, or a revision of it, was later paired with an English version and given to the printer Philippe-Denis Pierres, who produced a dual-language pamphlet: “Explanation of a Medal,” [c. May 5], below.