From Benjamin Franklin to William Franklin, 19 March 1767
To William Franklin
ALS: Pierpont Morgan Library
London, March 19. 1767
Dear Son
Dining to day with Mr. Potts,6 I hear that Letters go by this Night’s Post to Falmouth for the Chance of reaching the Packet. Therefore I write this Line just to say, that I receiv’d yesterday a Line from the Treasury7 acquainting me that Mr. Kollock is appointed upon my Recommendation to be Collector of Lewes.8 I shall be more particular in my next.9 Your affectionate Father
B Franklin
6. Either Henry Potts, secretary of the Post Office (above, IX, 179 n) or his nephew, Samuel, comptroller of the Inland Office (above, XII, 427).
7. Not found.
8. According to Pa. Gaz., June 11, 1767, and Pa. Chron., June 1–8, 1767, Jacob Kollock, Jr. (d. 1790), not his father, Col. Jacob Kollock (1692–1772), was appointed collector of customs at Lewes, Delaware. The younger man, who had been sheriff of Sussex County, 1752–58, clerk of the Court of Common Pleas there, and a lieutenant in his father’s militia regiment, was a friend of WF (see below, p. 177), who evidently asked BF to use his influence to obtain the appointment. In his Journal, 1764–1776, p. 11 and Ledger, 1764–1776, pp. 7, 9, BF recorded, April 11, 1767, the payment of £13 11s. 6d. in fees for Kollock’s commission, charging this expense to WF. For the Kollock family, see E. J. Sellers, Genealogy of the Kollock Family of Sussex County, Delaware 1657–1897 (Phila., 1897), pp. 32–5, 37.