To Benjamin Franklin from August Wilhelm Weye, 18 January 1778: résumé
From August Wilhelm Weÿe3
ALS: American Philosophical Society
<Bonn on the Rhine, January 18, 1778, in German: I have for some time been saving for the voyage to America, in order to serve Congress. The enclosed item in the press greatly surprised me, and I should like to know whether it is true.4 May it not be, and may God support the American cause!>
3. Or possibly Weyl. He gives his address as in the service of the comte de Wartensleben, Dutch envoy to the Empire at Bonn or Mainz. Karl Friedrich, Graf von Wartensleben, a general, diplomat, and imperial chamberlain, represented the Netherlands in various parts of the Empire: Friedrich Hausmann, Repertorium der diplomatischen Vertreter aller Lände seit dem Westfälischen Frieden (1648) (3 vols., Oldenbourg, etc., 1936–65), II, 243, 246–7, 249, 693.
4. The enclosure was a notice in the Bonn Intelligenz-Blatt of Jan. 13 that a large number of officers had reached America with recommendations from BF and Deane, had asked for commissions, and had been told that there were no more vacancies.