To Benjamin Franklin from Baynton, Wharton & Morgan, 30 May 1765
From Baynton, Wharton & Morgan
ALS: American Philosophical Society
Philada. May 30 1765
Dear Sir
It was not, until last Night, We recived your kind Favor of the 9th of March,9 otherwise, you may [be] assured, We should have remitted you, by this Packet (which [sails] On Saturday), The thousand pounds Sterling, That [you] in the most friendly Manner, sold Us.1
We are very sensibly pained, That we have subjected you, to the least Inconvenience, But as We judged, you would not be, in Want of it, We took the Liberty of not remitting you, for the Reasons, we candidly assigned you, in our Letter of the 23d of January2 and We were afterwards confirmed in that Opinion, By your Expectation, As we understood, you Wrote your Daughter, of returning, in Captain Friend.3 You may however, positively confide, in Our transmitting you, The Amount of Our Note, by the June Packet; Whose Mail will be closed, On the 8th of that Month.
We gratefully acknowledge your Friendship, In so early representing to Mr. Neave,4 The Value of Our Lands and for your Declaration of serving us, Otherwise, All in your Power. We can at present make no Other Returns, for such extensive [torn], Then the most sincere Assurances, That We shall upon [all Occa]sions, study to demonstrate, a thankfull Sense thereof. We are with unfeigned Regard Dear Sir Your much Obliged and faithfull Friends &c.
Baynton Wharton & Morgan
Dr. Benjn. Franklin.
Addressed: To / Benjamin Franklin Esqr: / Craven Street / London: / per The Harriot Packet
9. Not found; the letter was evidently carried by the Harriot packet whose arrival at New York, May 26, was reported in Pa. Gaz., May 30, 1765.
1. On the transaction mentioned here and in the next paragraph, see above, p. 145 and note.
2. Not found.
3. BF’s letter to Sally has not been found, although in her letter to him, May 30, 1765 (immediately below) she writes of having received a letter from him and of expecting to see him in Pa. in the fall.
4. Not Samuel Neave, the Philadelphia merchant, whom Hugh Roberts recommended to BF, May 20, 1765 (above, p. 136), but rather Richard Neave, a London merchant, on whom Baynton, Wharton & Morgan’s bill for £500, recorded by BF in his Journal on July 19, was drawn. In 1767 Richard Neave and his son, Richard, Jr., gave St. Paul’s Church, Philadelphia, a set of hangings and cushions valued at £250. During the Revolutionary War the Neaves turned up in France, whither they had fled from England, bankrupt, and asked BF to obtain a settlement with Baynton, Wharton & Morgan, whose indebtedness to them had caused their financial difficulties. PMHB, XII (1888), 379. APS has many letters from the Neaves to BF, written between 1780 and 1782, about their troubles with Baynton, Wharton & Morgan.