Benjamin Franklin Papers

To Benjamin Franklin from Alexander Colden, 7 July 1773: résumé

From Alexander Colden

ALS: American Philosophical Society

<General Post Office, New York, July 7, 1773: Has received Franklin’s letter of April 7 by the Lord Hyde, packet, and is glad to know that the accounts sent on March 3 have arrived;9 had hoped to hear by the Duke, packet, that they had been approved, but did not. Encloses Willing & Morris’s second Bill on Harris [Herries] & Co. for £15; the first went by the Mercury, packet, on June 2. Also encloses the following first bills: Archimedes Georges on Curtis & Lovell, merchants of Bristol, for £113 sterling in favor of John Bours, endorsed by him and Thomas Vernon; and Captain Norris Goddard on Anthony Todd for £69 in favor of Colden.1

His father, who visited him last Monday, “Continues to Enjoy a Surprising State of health and flow of Spirits,” and joins with him and David and Mrs. Colden2 in sending sincere compliments.>

[Note numbering follows the Franklin Papers source.]

9The corrected post office accounts for 1771–72 that BF had asked for the previous December: above, XIX, 399.

1We can identify only some of the firms and people mentioned. For Willing & Morris and Herries & Co. see Colden’s letter above, June 2. John Bours was senior warden of Trinity Church, Newport, and Thomas Vernon, another warden, was also the town’s postmaster. Franklin B. Dexter, The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles … (3 vols., New York, 1901), I, 539; above, V, 451 n. Goddard was, we presume, the master of the Lord Hyde mentioned above, XVII, 140; the packets were the principal mail ships, and Todd was secretary of the Post Office.

2Cadwallader Colden and his son David need no introduction; Elizabeth Colden, Alexander’s wife, was the daughter of Richard Nicholls.

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