Franklin’s Memorandum about the Walpole Company
ADS: New York Public Library
[July 14, 1778]

Extract of a Letter from the honble. Mr. Thos. Walpole Tuesday July 7, 1778 to Dr. Bancroft.

“Pray make my best Compliments to Mr. Moses (i.e. BF). I am always flattered when he thinks of me and my Family. The Letter you mention he wishes to have returned, totally escaped my Memory. Perhaps I may not be able to lay my hand upon it immediately, but I will most certainly send it back soon.”

Afterwards in the same Letter: “I have found Mr. Moses’s Letter and will send it this Evening under Cover to G.H. & Co. not chusing to inclose it in this on Acct. of the Signature.”

The Letter mention’d above is the same that I now attach with a Wafer to this Paper. It was written on Request of Mr. Walpole, to obviate an Objection made by the Atty. General Thurloe to the Signing our Patent, viz. my being unworthy the Favours of the Crown. But I was still to be consider’d as an Associate, and was call’d upon for my Payments as before. My Right to two Shares, or two Parts of 72, in that Purchase, still continues, having paid all the Expence belonging to those Shares. And I hope, that when the Troubles of America are over, my Posterity may reap the Benefit of them. I write this Memorandum at Passy in France, where I now am in the Service of the United States. July 14. 1778.

B Franklin

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