To Benjamin Franklin from Edme-Louis Daubenton, 31 May 1780
From Edme-Louis Daubenton
AL: American Philosophical Society
au jardin du Roy ce 31. may. [1780?]7
M. Daubenton le jeune a l’honneur de presenter son hommage à Monsieur franklin et de l’assurer de son respect en lui envoyant les nouveaux Cayers des oiseaux enluminés qui lui manquent pour completer son exemplaire. Il aura grand soin de mettre a part ceux qui restent à faire et de les envoyer à Monsieur franklin.
Addressed: A Monsieur / Monsieur franklin / membre de plusieurs academies / pres de la muette / à Passy.
7. We originally assigned this note to 1773 and explained the address as being Le Roy’s rather than BF’s: XX, 219, 320n, 487n. Dr. Horst Dippel, however, has argued that “les nouveaux Cayers des oiseaux enluminés” were not an installment of “les planches enluminées” sent with Daubenton’s note of July 20, 1773, but the color plates issued seven years later, and that this note of May 31 therefore belongs to 1780 or 1781: Amerikastudien, XXIII (1978), 347–8. We find his argument convincing, and are republishing the note in what we now believe is its earliest likely place.