From Benjamin Franklin to Catharine Greene, [10 November 1763]
To Catharine Greene
ALS: American Philosophical Society
[November 10, 1763]3
Dear Katy
I should ask Mr. Greene’s Permission now to call you so, which I hope he will give me, making Allowance for the Strength of old Habits. This is to acquaint you and him that your Guests, after a very pleasant Journey, got well home on the 5th. Instant, without the least ill Accident, and had the additional Happiness of finding their Friends all well. Mr. Green’s Goodnature and yours, will be pleas’d to hear this, and therefore I take the first Opportunity of writing it. Sally joins me in Thanks to you both, for all your kindness to us, and in best Wishes of Prosperity to you and yours. Please to acquaint Mr. Rufus Green4 that I shall write to him per next Post. I am, Dear Friend Yours affectionately
B Franklin
Addressed: To / Mrs Katharine Greene / at Greenwich / Rhodeisland
3. William G. Roelker, ed., Benjamin Franklin and Catharine Ray Greene Their Correspondence 1755–1790 (Phila., 1949), pp. 40–1, gives this date with only the year in brackets. The upper corner of the sheet is now too badly torn to leave any part of the date line decipherable. Roelker may have been able to read the month and day when he printed the letter; certainly the substance of this and the letters to Jane Mecom and Joshua Babcock written early in November, printed above, shows that the date as here given is at least approximately correct.
4. Rufus Greene (1712–1784), merchant and iron manufacturer of East Greenwich, R.I., was a distant cousin of both the Greenes, and an uncle of Gen. Nathaniel Greene of Revolutionary War fame. Perhaps BF intended to appoint Rufus Greene to some position in the Post Office. Ibid., p. 40.