Benjamin Franklin Papers

To Benjamin Franklin from David Hall, 5 April 1762

From David Hall

Letterbook copy: American Philosophical Society

Philada. April 5. 1762.

Sir,

Yours of December 10.4 by the Packet, I received, with your Opinion relating to my remitting you; and have, accordingly sent you the first Copy of a Bill of Exchange for Three Hundred Pounds Sterling (Exchange Seventy-seven and a Half) drawn by Messieurs Plumsted and Franks, on Sir James Colebrooke Baronet, Arnold Nesbitt, George Colebrooke, and Moses Franks, Esquires;5 the Receipt of which you will please to acknowledge, and advise of its being paid, when you have got the Money.6 I am Sir Yours, &c.

D. Hall

Sent Via New-York, by Pitt Packet.7

[Note numbering follows the Franklin Papers source.]

4See above, IX, 398–9.

5William Plumsted (1708–1765) and David Franks (d. 1794) were partners in a Philadelphia mercantile firm. James Colebrooke (1722–1761), created baronet 1759, his brother George (1729–1809), Arnold Nesbitt (1721?–1779), and Moses Franks (d. 1789), brother of David, held profitable contracts for servicing the British forces in America. Namier and Brooke, House of Commons, II, 235–7; III, 194–5.

6BF probably received this bill toward the end of June 1762 (see the next note) but did not record its receipt in his “account of Expences,” as he almost invariably did with Hall’s bills. He was probably too busy preparing to return home.

7London Chron., June 19–22, 1762, carried a report from Falmouth, June 17, of the arrival of the Pitt packet, Captain Goddard, after a voyage of thirty-six days from N.Y.

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