To Benjamin Franklin from Feutry, [after 15 April 1777]
From Feutry
AL: American Philosophical Society
[After April 15, 17775]
Feutry est venu pour avoir L’honneur de voir Monsieur de Franklin et de se rappeller à son souvenir. Il joint ici une nouvelle Traduction de Richard que M. Quétant, son ami, Lui a confiée pour la faire voir à Monsieur de Franklin; il Le supplie de vouloir bien la lui renvoyer dans quelque Jour.6
Feutry fait remettre ses canons en Etat de paroître et de tirer; il aura L’honneur d’en instruire Mr. de franklin aussitôt qu’ils seront prêts.7 Il ose ici L’assurer de son profound respect et de son sincere attachement.
Maison de M. de Cormainville, Maréchal de Camps, Barriere ste. anne, à La nouvelle france.
5. A covering letter of this date from Quétant to Feutry was enclosed with the MS and is now in the APS; the translator expressed the “plaisir que j’ai à satisfaire votre empressement,” and we are confident that the same sense of haste led Feutry to forward the documents to BF within a day or two.
6. For Antoine-François Quétant, the playwright, see Larousse, Dictionnaire universel. He was sending his translation of “Father Abraham’s Speech,” which was published before the year was out; see Feutry to BF below, Nov. 14, 1777.
7. As early as 1754 Feutry had made a model of a small light cannon, which could be disassembled to be carried in parts, and had tried intermittently since then to have his invention tested. No one except the marquis de Puységur seems to have given him any encouragement. See his Supplément aux nouveaux opuscules, pp. 22–6, 30–6, and the article on him in the Dictionnaire de biographie française. During the summer of 1777 he had two shells and two pierced bullets made for the model; BF apparently promised to subsidize the work, for seven years later the ammunition-maker asked him for reimbursement: Chevalier to BF, May 16, 1784, APS.