8. Sir John Cust, 3d baronet (1718–1770), was M.P. for Grantham, 1743–1770, and speaker of the House of Commons from Nov. 3, 1761, to Jan. 19, 1770, five days before his death. Newcastle called him “a sort of plodding, ordinary man”; as a presiding officer he was diligent but neither particularly competent nor effective. DNB; Namier and Brooke, House of Commons, II, 290–1.

9. Cust must have erred in dating this note. The inclusion of BF’s son in the invitation indicates the years 1758–62, during which time February 11 never fell on a Tuesday. The only year in which it did so fall during Cust’s lifetime and when BF was in England was 1766, but WF was then in N.J. as governor and William Temple Franklin was still an infant. Cust was speaker of the House of Commons in 1762, and since there seem to have been no definite personal reasons for the invitation, it is placed here for want of a more likely date.