I received your Letter requesting a Loan of £130 to be repaid if not found due to the Estate of your Father. If I could persuade myself that I really owed the Money to that Estate I would pay it immediately. But on the most careful Examination of all the Sights I can collect from what remains of my Papers and Accounts most of which were lost in the late Troubles: and from a Consideration of all Circumstances, I verily believe that Account must have been settled and adjusted in its Time. Some of those Circumstances I shall mention to you.

The House was begun in 1763. I advanc’d to Mr. Smith several Sums particularly £200 on his Bond; and when I went to England in 1764 I left Money with Mr. Rhoads for subsequent Advances as they might become necessary, he having kindly undertaken to inspect for me the Execution of my Plan, and to ease Mrs. Franklin of any Trouble that might arise in carrying on the Building. When the Money left with him was expended your Father apply’d to Mrs. Franklin, who was my Attorney, and had always a Command of Money. The Sums credited in his Account from April 10 1767 must have been received from here, as they are subsequent to Mr. Rhoads’s Account. Then I have an original Letter of Mr. Smith to Mr. Rhoads dated March 30. 1767. in which he states that he had then received in all £646, but supposes his Account will amount to £780, and desires a Payment of Fifty or Sixty Pounds. It appears by his Account that he did soon after receive Sixty Pounds in three Payments, which must have been all from Mr. Franklin, tho’ only one of the Receipts given to her remains; but that shows your Father was in the Way of receiving Money from her after Mr. Rhoads had done paying. The continued acting as my Attorney receiving and paying Money for me by Virtue of a Power I left with her, until the End of 1774 when she deceased, I remaining still in England. In May 1775 I returned. I had not the least Idea that any thing could remain due to Mr. Smith on Account of a Building which had been furnish’d so many Years. Mrs. Franklin having always had it in her Power to pay. I remain’d here 18 Months, saw Mr. Smith very often, and he never once hinted that he had a demand on me or that he thought I owed him anything. If he had I should immediately have discharg’d the Debt, having no Want of Money for the Purpose, as appears by my lending the Congress £3000. From all which I conclude that either the Account had been settled between him and Mrs. Franklin; or that in a more perfect Estimate than that mention’d in his Letter to Mr. Rhoads, he found that he had been fully paid, and so made no farther Demand.

If these Reasons should not be satisfactory to you or the Family, and any can be given me proper to invalidate them, I shall consider them with Attention, being always willing to do Justice, but unwilling to pay twice for the same Object. I am Sir Your most obedient humble Servant (Signed)