From Benjamin Franklin to Charles-Guillaume-Frédéric Dumas, 2 March 1776
To Charles-Guillaume-Frédéric Dumas
Reprinted from The Port Folio, III, (1803), 214.
Philadelphia, March 22, [i.e., 24], 1776.
Dear Sir,
I wrote to you lately by Mr. Story, and since by another conveyance.5 This line will be delivered to you by Mr. Deane, who goes over on business of the Congress, and with whom you may freely converse on the affairs committed to you, in behalf of that body. I recommend him warmly to your civilities. Mess’rs. Vaillant and Pochard continue close at their new business, and are already able to subsist by it: as they grow more expert, they will be able to make more money.6
Mr. Deane will inform you of every thing here, and I need not add more, than that I am, with esteem and respect, Dear Sir, Your most obedient, And most humble servant,
B. Franklin.
4. Dumas dated the letter the 2nd (to BF below, Aug. 4) and must have been right because it went by Deane, who left Philadelphia on the 8th and was in Delaware Bay on the 16th: Deane Papers, I, 126–7.
5. The letter by Story is above, Dec. 9; the other has disappeared.
6. We have no idea what the business was; BF had doubtless explained it in his lost letter. He clearly had not heard that Pochard was about to leave for Canada, whence he went to England while Vaillant remained in Philadelphia; see Pochard to BF below, Oct. 11.