From Benjamin Franklin to Deborah Franklin, 23 August 1760
To Deborah Franklin
ALS: American Philosophical Society
London Augt. 23. 1760.
My dear Child,
I receiv’d your Letters by Mr. Keene,9 and some others, which I shall answer fully by Capt. Faulkner, who sails in a few Days.1
By him I send the Eider Down Cover lid, and Bag for the Feet, which cost 12 Guineas;2 also the Camlet a second time for Sister Peter, to supply what was lost in Capt. House:3 with some other little things that I shall mention hereafter. They are in a Box mark’d SF.
This serves to let you know we are well, and to cover a Pacquet for the Speaker which you will carefully deliver.4
My Duty to Mother, Love to Sally and all Friends. I am concern’d you should be so perplex’d about a House, and hope you are settled before this time.5
Your ever [loving husb]and
B Franklin
In the Box are sundry Parcels for Mrs. Gambier.6
Mrs. Franklin
9. Samuel Keene (1734–1810), A.B., College of Philadelphia, 1759, had come to London to take orders in the Church of England, Sept. 29, 1760. He spent the remainder of his life ministering to various parishes in Maryland. Horace W. Smith, Life and Correspondence of the Rev. William Smith, D. D. (Phila., 1880), I, 242–6; Frederick L. Weis, The Colonial Clergy of Maryland, Delaware, and Georgia (Lancaster, Mass., 1950), p. 51. None of DF’s letters written during 1760 have been found.
1. Capt. Nathaniel Falconer in the Friendship reached Deal, September 3, London Chron., Sept. 2–4, 1760. He had arrived at Philadelphia, according to Pa. Gaz., Nov. 13, 1760.
2. See above, pp. 176–7.
3. BF’s sister-in-law, Mary Harman Franklin (C. 9). The Juliana, Capt. House, was captured by a French privateer in the spring of 1760; see above, p. 15 n.
4. Isaac Norris acknowledged the receipt of BF’s letter of Aug. 22, with “inclosed Papers” (not found) on Oct. 22, 1760; see below, p. 236.
5. Since 1756 the Franklins had been renting a house in Market Street from John Wister for £42 a year. In April 1761, however, DF and Sally moved to a house which Adam Eckert, a joiner, had recently bought at what is now 326 Market Street, and the family lived there until early in 1765. Then DF and Sally moved to their new house at 318 Market Street, which had been under construction since 1763. Hannah B. Roach, “Benjamin Franklin Slept Here,” PMHB, LXXIV (1960), 164–74; see also map, above, II, following 456.
6. Probably the wife of either John or Samuel Gambier, public officials in the Bahamas; see above, VII, 325 n, VIII, 424 n.