To Benjamin Franklin from Edward Bridgen, 18 March 1778
From Edward Bridgen7
ALS: American Philosophical Society
March 18 1778
Your Excellency I hope will excuse my breaking in upon your full employ’d time, by requesting your leave to introduce to your acquaintance Monsieur Garnier Secretary to the french Embassy to this Court, who wishes for the honour of being known to the greatest Man living.8
I have had the honour of a strict intimacy with this Gentleman for many years I therefore can assure you Sir that he is a Gentleman of great Merit and the strictest honour and whose abilities have done credit to his Employers.
I need not add more to entitle him to your Excellency’s attention and politeness. Wishing you Sir every good, in which Mrs B.9 joines, I beg leave to subscribe myself, Your Excellency’s obliged and obedient Servant
Edward Bridgen
His Excellency Benjn: Franklin
Notation: E Bridgeden
7. The London alderman, an old acquaintance: above, XII, 422 n.
8. He was already well known from BF’s years in London, and had recently agreed to provide Bancroft with information helpful to the American cause: above, XXII, 374 n. The chargé d’affaires returned to Paris convinced that France should start hostilities soon, before the Carlisle commission made an impression in the U.S. His acquaintance with BF apparently ripened, for the following January he was said to be lodging with him in Passy: Croÿ, Journal, IV, 87–8, 140–1.
9. Née Martha Richardson, the daughter of the famous novelist.