To Benjamin Franklin from John Hope, 26 March 1771
From John Hope5
ALS: Historical Society of Pennsylvania
Edinb. 26 March 1771
Sir
As formerly you took the trouble of transmitting some letter from a Society at Edinburgh to Mr. John Bartram; I presume to beg you will have the Goodness of transmitting the inclosed.
That Society is now dissolved.6 I have the honour to be Sir with the greatest respect Your most obedient Servant
John Hope
5. The Edinburgh physician and professor of botany; see above, X, 16 n.
6. The name of the organization seems to have been merely “A Society of Gentlemen at Edinburgh,” although its members lived all over Scotland; its purpose was to import seeds of foreign trees and ornamental shrubs. William Darlington, Memorials of John Bartram and Humphry Marshall... (Philadelphia, 1849), pp. 405, 434. The letter to Bartram that Hope enclosed, dated March 23, is printed in ibid., pp. 435–6. It says nothing about the dissolution of the Society but, on the contrary, mentions its ample funds and offers Bartram a gold medal in its name.