Biddle (1745–1812), the brother of the more famous naval officer, Nicholas Biddle,4 was a Philadelphia merchant captain. He had returned the previous January from a complicated but successful voyage to France for gunpowder,5 and on the way back had injured himself badly in a fall. For a time in August he joined the army in New Jersey, and in September he left, bound for the Caribbean;6 his lameness, in other words, did not prevent his resuming his “line of business” at sea. What office he held when he wrote we do not know. The office for which he was applying was that of an agent for the marine committee; these agents, who came to be known as the navy board, were first authorized in October,7 but the need for them may well have been discussed much earlier. The wording of the second paragraph suggests the bracket of dates that we have supplied: gout kept Franklin out of circulation after his return to Philadelphia on May 30, and his presiding over the Pennsylvania convention when it assembled on July 15 publicized his recovery.