From Benjamin Franklin to Jean de Neufville, 18 March 1779
To Jean de Neufville
Copy: Library of Congress
Passy March 18 1779
Sir
I hope you got safe home & had a happy meeting with your Family & Friends; and that you will succeed in your Undertaking.3
I have considered the Memorial of the Person who calls himself Baron de Mons, & have made some Inquiries. I have since your Departure received a long Letter from Me. La Baronne de Mons.4 Upon the whole I am of Opinion that their Story is all a Fiction, and that they are Imposters and have no such Estates in America. I give you this Information, that you may be careful in making farther Advances to them. She writes from Altona. I have the Honor to be &c.
M. Neufville
3. To raise an American loan in the Netherlands.
4. Among BF’s papers at the APS are two documents in French concerning a Samuel Stanley, Baron de Mons. One is a Sept. 18, 1778, memorandum from him to Congress reclaiming his property rights in Massachusetts and South Carolina and giving power of attorney to De Neufville & fils, Jean de Neufville’s banking house. The memorandum also describes the properties in question, the former, near Boston, containing 100 acres, and the latter, near Charleston, 160 acres. The second document is a March 5, 1779, letter from the baroness de Mons reporting that they are at Altona (adjoining Hamburg) and that the baron is ill. She explains their claims, repeating much of the information from the earlier memorandum.