From Benjamin Franklin to David Hall, 27 September 1766
To David Hall
ALS: Salem County Historical Society, Salem, N.J.
London, Sept. 27. 1766
Dear Mr Hall,
I have before me your Favours of May 1. and July 12.1 and thank you for the Readiness with which you have supplied Mrs. Franklin from time to time.2
Here is a dead Calm of Politicks at present, the Publick being tired with the Invectives against Lord Chatham,3 and no fresh Game started for the political Beagles to hunt down; and probably none will start till the Meeting of Parliament, which ’tis said will certainly be on the 11th. of November.4
I condole with you and Cousin Molly on the Death of your Brother at Barbadoes, of which unhappy Event Mrs. Franklin inform’d me.5
Mr. and Mrs. Strahan have been in the North some Weeks, and are but just return’d. She is laid up with a most severe Fit of the Gout, which I hope will prove salutary to her, by giving a new Turn to her Constitution. He had desired me to mention his Absence, and excuse his not Writing to you per last Packet; but thro’ Hurry I omitted writing to you myself.
My Love to your Wife and Children, to whom with yourself I wish all Prosperity, being Dear Friend, Yours affectionately
B Franklin
Addressed: To / Mr David Hall / Printer / Philadelphia
Endorsed: Mr. Franklin, Septr. 27. 1766
Stoughton6
1. See above, pp. 259, 331–2.
2. In both of these letters Hall mentioned supplying DF with money. Now that the partnership was ended such advances could not be considered merely as payments on account of BF’s share of the firm’s income, as they had been in previous years.
3. The newspapers had been full of “political squibs” directed against Pitt for accepting a peerage. One of the milder pieces was a quatrain in London Chron., Aug. 2–5, 1766, entitled “On a late Promotion”; it read: “The Court, to please old talking Will,/Whose Tongue was always at ’em,/For ever more to keep it still,/Has made him Earl of Ch----m.”
4. Hall reprinted this paragraph in Pa. Gaz., Dec. 18, 1766.
5. In her missing letter of July 7 DF had probably told her husband of the recent death of Mary Hall’s brother, Samuel Leacock (F.2.2.6), a clockmaker of Bridgetown, Barbados.
6. Not identified.