To Benjamin Franklin from Jeremiah Miller, 13 August 1765
From Jeremiah Miller6
ALS: American Philosophical Society
New London 13th August 1765
Honourable Sir
The Freedom and Benevolence with which you have Cultivated that Friendship (which you for many years reciprocally Enjoyd with my Deceased Father7) and which you have on all Occasions Shewn me is a foundation for the Liberty I now take in asking the Favour, if it should happen without any Inconvenience or trouble to you, Just to mention me or my Family, so as it may be known to the Honourable Mr. Grenville8 and I Imagine if it was done by the way of Mr. Jackson9 it would Answer every purpose. The Affair is this Colo. Dyer our Comptroller is Desireous of having his office of Comptroller Transferred from him to my Son John Still Miller, if it might be Acceptable;1 And has wrote Mr. Grenville and Mr. Jackson his Desire of having it done of which Mr. Jackson can Informe you more Particularly.
And Sir if what I have proposed is Dissagreable I only beg you’l Excuse it in one whose Ardent wishes are that you may return again in Safety to your native Country and Enjoy with your good Family Many Days. I am with great respect your most obedient and obliged Humble Servant
Jere. Miller
Benjamin Franklin Esq.
Addressed: To / Doctr. Benjamin Franklin Esq / now in / London
Endorsed: Miller N London
6. Jeremiah Miller, Jr. (1719–1797) succeeded his father Jeremiah Miller, Sr. (d. 1756), B.A., Yale, 1709, as naval officer at New London and served until after the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. Miller was related by blood and marriage to the Saltonstall, Dudley, and Winthrop families. Dexter, Biog. Sketches, I, 83–4; New London Hist. Soc. Colls., 1, 662–5; Dean Dudley, History of the Dudley Family (Wakefield, Mass., 1891), II, 815.
7. How BF came to know the elder Miller and how close their friendship was is not known.
8. Miller could not have known that the Grenville ministry had gone out of office in July.
9. Richard Jackson was, of course, Connecticut’s agent in Great Britain.
1. Col. Eliphalet Dyer (above, X, 318–19 n) had been in England during 1763 and 1764 as agent for the Susquehanna Company and while there was appointed comptroller of the customs at New London. The office led to local criticism, but he was appointed a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress. John Still Miller (b. 1746) seems to have obtained a post in the customs somewhat later in the 1760s; he was appointed postmaster at New London in 1769. Jeremiah Miller to BF, Dec. 11, 1769, APS.