To Benjamin Franklin from John Shaffer, 8 April 1784
From John Shaffer4
ALS: American Philosophical Society
Paris ce 8 avril 84./.
Sir
As the Marquis de la fayette is Kind Enough to Suply me with Every Nessary to Return to my Native Country, and as I intend to Leave paris in a day or two I beg you will Kind Enough to send me a Pasport for LOrent. As to the small Sum of Money you was Kind Enough to lend me you may be assured that as Soon As I arrive in America I will Reimburce you with Intrest,5 or if you think Proper I will Give you a bill payable at Sight upon My father at Philada., if you will Honour me with your Comands to that Country I will Charge my Self with Pleasure.
I am with Respect sir your Humble servant
J. Schaffer
Rue St Jacque de la
Boucherie Ches Antoin
Peruquier a Paris
PS. I beg you will without los of time Send me the Past Port En question6 and if you thinck Proper I will Send you the bill I Propopose to you—
Notation: Schaffer 8 avril 1784
4. BF could not have been unhappy to see the last of John Shaffer (now spelling his surname with a “c”; see XL, 618n), who brought warm letters of recommendation when he arrived in France in 1781, but who had exhausted BF’s patience and goodwill by the time of his most recent arrest in August, 1783, on charges of fraud. For his introduction to BF and an overview of his misdeeds, including the felonies he committed after returning to Philadelphia, see XXXIV, 364. For his arrest, imprisonment, trial, appeal, and unexpected acquittal at the end of January, 1784, see XL, 618–20; XLI, passim.
5. An oft-repeated assurance, which had little chance of coming true. Around the same time as the present letter, BF and WTF both received pleas from a cook named Denis Germain Gien, who had supplied Shaffer with food in prison and had housed him after his release, even lending him clothes. It was the lawyer Beaumont who had persuaded him to accept Shaffer’s credit, but Shaffer vanished without paying a single bill. After much sleuthing, Gien found that Shaffer was living at a wigmaker’s on the rue St. Jacques de la Boucherie (the address Shaffer gives BF here) under the name “Lewingston.” Fearing that he will never be paid once Shaffer leaves for America, Gien asks BF’s help in recovering the 353 l.t. he is owed by this “fripon.” APS.
6. BF did so. On “Saturday Morning,” which must have been April 10, Shaffer wrote a final note informing BF that he would leave Paris the next day and would not have time to pay his respects in person. He was also “much mortified” at not being able to thank WTF in person, and wished him “health and happiness.” APS.