To Benjamin Franklin from Lawrence Holden, 18 April 1765
From Lawrence Holden7
ALS: American Philosophical Society
Maldon in Essex Aprl. 18. 1765.
Sir
Agreeable to your kind assistances and instructions in the affair, seven setts of my paraphrase are now handsomely bound, and ready to be shipp’d, in the first vessel for that quarter, to Mr. David Hall Bookseller in Philadelphia: But being an entire stranger to the said Gentleman, if you wou’d add to my already extreme obligation, the favour of a Line to him, to honour my work with an introduction, it wo’d immediately engage his most strenuous endeavours to serve me, and be exceeding kind.8 My Son, the bearer of this, is in waiting; and will see it put up in the box with the books: And I shall always esteem my self with the profoundest regard gratitude and veneration Sir Your most Obedient devoted humble Servant
Law. Holden
P.S. If you shou’d not upon receiving this impertinence, have immediate Leizure to write a Line or two, please to direct him when to call for the favour. He is fixed not above two Miles from your Lodgings.
7. Lawrence Holden (1710–1778) was a dissenting minister (he is described as being a Unitarian) who preached and kept a school at Maldon, Essex. He was the author of several works of divinity, one of which, A Paraphrase on … Job, Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes (4 vols., London, 1763), is mentioned in the present letter. DNB.
8. So far as is known, BF did not write Hall on Holden’s behalf. Issues of Pa. Gaz. in late June and early July 1765 do not list Holden’s work in Hall’s advertisements of books lately received and for sale.