To Benjamin Franklin from Silas Deane, 19 December 1777
From Silas Deane
AL: University of Pennsylvania Library
Passy 19th Decr. 1777
Dear Sir
I this instant received the inclosed, and as I do not fully Understand the meaning of it I judged it Necessary to go immediately and see Mr. Gerard. I will be back by about Eight o’Clock. I think that it is designed that Our Letter should be sent by the Minister’s Messenger, it is perhaps the most proper. If so it must be Compleated this Evening, as well as the Letter of Credit.7 I am with the utmost Respect Dear Sir Your most Obedient and Very humble Servant
Silas Deane
7. The enclosure must have been a note from Gérard written at eight that morning (APS). It asked Deane for information, and for a letter of credit for 15,000 l.t. The latter was for the captain of the French warship carrying Simeon Deane home from Bordeaux, and was duly provided the next day; see the commissioners to Gérard below, Dec. 20. “Our letter” was undoubtedly that to the Mass. Council of the same date. Their dispatch to the committee for foreign affairs, which Deane also carried, seems to have been completed on the 18th.