To Benjamin Franklin from ——— Taverne Demont Dhiver, 10 March 1779
From ——— Taverne Demont Dhiver6
ALS: American Philosophical Society
Dunkirk 10th. march 1779.
Mylord,
I am honoured with your letter of the 28. ulto.7 by which I observe you desire to hear from the congress, before you grant my request, as I doubt not you shall have soon that satisfaction! I shall wait your pleisure, in hope you shall comply to my demand, since I gott a Cutter and a brig of 16 four pounders, ready to gett to sea, which I intend to give to some of your nationals to cruise together,—Inclos’d I transmitt you letters from them to which they beg you’ll honour them of an answer.8
I have the honor to be respectfully your most humble & Obedient Servant Mylord,
Taverne Demont Dhiver
Notation: Taverne de Mont Dhiver Dunkeque 10 march 1779.
6. A Dunkirk merchant, who planned to outfit a privateer for the American captain Stephen Marchant: XXVIII, 591. For Marchant see XXVIII, 471n.
7. Which denied BF had the authority to grant commissions to Marchant and his second-in-command, Jonathan Arnold: XXVIII, 628. William Bell Clark, in his Ben Franklin’s Privateers, pp. 16–17, speculates that BF was using this supposed lack of authority to avoid becoming involved in the privateering scheme.
8. Missing.