To Benjamin Franklin from Isaac Norris, 27 February 1760
From Isaac Norris
Letterbook copy: Historical Society of Pennsylvania
Philada Febry 27. 1760
Dear Friend B Franklin
I am just come from the House to my Brother’s where I met a Gentleman setting out for NY4 who complements me with staying for this Letter which will probably reach the Albany Sloop of War to be dispatched by General Amherst, as he writes our Governor in ten Days from the 21st Instant. This Vessel brot Secretary Pitts Letter with the Plan of Operations for the ensuing Campaigne in N America on the same Terms as last Year.5
The Governor did not lay this Letter and General Amhersts Two Letters accompanying it before us ’till two or three Hours ago, thô he received them last Week so that I cannot send you the Resolves of the House for want of Time but, by what has been said by several Members I think, there is no Doubt we shall raise the same Number of Men that we supplied last year in hopes the present Ministry will not sacrifice their American Possessions to a foreign Interest in a future Peace.6
This farther Grant will load us with a great Debt and it would have been some Direction to our future Supplies to have received an Account of the proportion of the Parliamentary Grant allotted to our Province,7 but this Crisis in America demands our utmost Strength and we contribute it freely for our own Security and in Aid of the vast Expences of our Mother Country in this just and necessary War.
I recd your Two Letters of the 10th November and 8th. of December last8 and Now inclose a First Bill of Exchange.9 John Hunter on Messrs Thomlinson Hanbury Colebrooke & Nisbett No 3,638 for £100 Sterl which I request you to receive for my Account.1 I am &c.
Endorsed: | Via N Y. by the Albany Sloop of War |
B F received this Letter ackd. June 14th 1760.2 |
4. In the margin: “dd T. Lloyd” for “delivered to Thomas Lloyd.” See above, VI, 380 n.
5. On Feb. 21, 1760, General Amherst (above, VIII, 328 n) wrote Governor Hamilton two letters urging him to use his “utmost Endeavours” to enlist the full support of the Pa. Assembly for the ensuing campaign. These, and William Pitt’s letter to Hamilton of Jan. 7, 1760, which Amherst enclosed and in part paraphrased, were laid before the Assembly on Feb. 27, 1760. 8 Pa. Arch., VI, 5102–9. The Albany, Capt. Jarvis, sailed from N.Y. during the third week of March convoying troops to Charleston, S.C. She arrived there on April 1 and was to sail directly for England. N.-Y. Mercury, March 17, April 14, 1760; Pa. Gaz., April 17, 1760; John R. Alden, John Stuart and the Southern Colonial Frontier (Ann Arbor, 1944), pp. 106–7.
6. For the men and money raised by the Assembly for the 1760 campaign, see next page. In the margin there is this notation: “see Mar. 1st. 1760 entered postea pag. 113.”
7. Pa.’s share of the £200,000 voted by Parliament to reimburse the colonies for their war expenditures in 1758 (see above, VIII, 333) was £26,902 8s. After deducting various fees and gratuities paid to officials at the Exchequer and his commission for receiving the money and depositing it in the Bank of England, BF calculated, Nov. 4, 1760, that “the neat sum in the bank, belonging to the Province” was £26,648 4s. 6d. Pa. appears to have received about £30 less than this, however, because in rounding off a figure to simplify his calculations, BF credited the province with £17 5s. 2d. too much and he also failed to deduct certain charges by the solicitor. See below, pp. 241–2.
8. Neither letter has been found.
9. In the margin: “First Bill Excha. No. 3638. £100. 0. 0.”
1. BF received this bill on April 22, 1760. “Account of Expences,” p. 57; PMHB, LV (1931), 129.
2. No letter of this date from BF to Norris has been found.