1Charles-Guillaume-Frédéric Dumas to the Committee of Secret Correspondence, 30 April[– 9 May 1776] (Franklin Papers)
AL and copy: National Archives; letterbook draft: Algemeen Rijksarchief, the Hague. J’ai reçu le 6e de ce mois à La Haie, des mains de Mr. Tho. Storey, les dépêches dont vous l’aviez chargé pour moi en date du 9e Xbr. 1775. Je suis touché, pénétré jusqu’au fond du coeur, de l’honneur que me fait et de la confiance que me témoigne le Committé nommé par le Congrès général pour la Correspondance...
2Charles-Guillaume-Frédéric Dumas to the Committee of Secret Correspondence, 14 May[–6 June 1776] (Franklin Papers)
AL and copy: National Archives; letterbook draft: Algemeen Rijksarchief, the Hague Après vous avoir donné ci-joint copie ou extrait de ce qu’il y avoit de plus essentiel dans ma premiere dépeche que je nommerai A pour la briéveté, je commence celle-ci, que je nomme B, en forme de Journal. Ayez la bonté, conséquemment, lorsque vous m’écrirez, de me marquer que vous avez reçu, ou non, la Dépeche...
3Lambert Wickes to the Committee of Secret Correspondence, 16 June 1776 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : National Archives I received your orders and Instructions by Mr. Bingham, the 14th Inst. but the Shallop with the provisions did not Arrive till this day. We have now got all the provision on board both from the Wasp and Shallop. You may depend on my best endeavours in your Service to prosecute this Voyage with the Most expedition and Advantage in my power. My People, all to two are in...
4Silas Deane to Robert Morris and the Committee of Secret Correspondence, 23 June 1776 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : (duplicate): Library of Congress This letter, in form to Morris but in fact to the committee, is the only one from Deane that Franklin surely saw before his departure for France; it was therefore part of his small stock of information about what would face him in Europe. The letter deals only with the preliminaries of Deane’s mission, because he reached France long after he had hoped to....
5Lambert Wickes to the Committee of Secret Correspondence, 11 July 1776 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : National Archives This will inform you of my proceedings since I left Cape May the 3d Instant. We left that place in Company with 13 Merchant Men, who I think all got Safe off, as we did not loose Sight of them till they got a good distance from the Land. We Saw no Ships of War at all on the Coast. We this Day fell in with Captain Mackay, in the Ship Friendship from Granada bound to...
6Lambert Wickes to the Committee of Secret Correspondence, 13 July 1776 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : National Archives This will inform of a Small Addition to our good fortune in the Prize Way. We this day took Capt. Muckelno in the Schooner Peter of Liverpool from St. Vincent bound to Liverpool in Brittain, Loaded with: Rum: Sugar Coffee Cocoa and Cotton. We also took Capt. Mackey in the Ship Friendship from Granada, bound to London, which I have wrote you of before, and Now Send a...
7Report of Thomas Story to the Committee of Secret Correspondence and the Committee’s Memorandum upon It, [1 October … (Franklin Papers)
DS and copy: National Archives “On my leaving London Arthur Lee Esqr. requested me to inform the Committee of Correspondence, that he had several conferences with the French Embassador who had communicated the same to the French Court, that in consequence thereof the Duke De Vergennes had sent a gentleman to Mr. Lee, [who informed] him that the French Court could not think of entering into a...
8From Benjamin Franklin to the Committee of Secret Correspondence, 8[–10] December 1776 (Franklin Papers)
ALS and copy: National Archives After a short but rough Passage of 30 Days we anchor’d in Quiberon Bay, the Wind not suiting to enter the Loire. Capt. Wicks did every thing in his Power to make the Voyage comfortable to me; and I was much pleas’d with what I saw of his Conduct as an Officer, when on suppos’d Occasions we made Preparation for Engagement, the good Order and Readiness with which...
ALS and copy: National Archives I arrived here about two Weeks since, where I found Mr. Deane. Mr. Lee has since join’d us from London. We have had an Audience of the Minister, Count de Vergennes, and were respectfully receiv’d. We left for his Consideration a Sketch of the propos’d Treaty. We are to wait upon him tomorrow with a strong Memorial requesting the Aids mentioned in our...
10The American Commissioners to the Committee of Secret Correspondence, 17[–22] January 1777 (Franklin Papers)
LS and two copies: National Archives; copy: South Carolina Historical Society We joined each other at this place on the 22d. of December and on the 28th. had an Audience of his Excellency the Count De Vergennes, one of his most Christian Majesty’s principal Secretarys of State and Minister for Foreign Affairs. We laid before him our Commission with the Articles of the proposed Treaty of...
11The American Commissioners to the Committee of Secret Correspondence, 6 February 1777 (Franklin Papers)
LS and copy: National Archives; copy: Harvard University Library Since our last, a Copy of which is enclosed Mr. Hodge is arrived here from Martinique, and has brought safely the Papers he was charged with. He had a long Passage and was near being starved. We are about to employ him in a Service, pointed out by you, at Dunkirk or Flushing. He has delivered us three sets of the Papers we...
12The American Commissioners to the Committee of Secret Correspondence, 8 February 1777 (Franklin Papers)
ALS and copy: National Archives Since Our last We have received the inclosed Intelligence from London, which we take the earliest Opportunity of forwarding, in hopes it may be received with Our other Letters by Nantes. A Vessel from So: Carolina, loaded by that state, which sailed the 20th December, is arrived at L’Orient with Rice and Indigo. As We were particular in Our last which was sent...
13The American Commissioners to the Committee of Secret Correspondence, 4 March 1777 (Franklin Papers)
ALS and copy: National Archives We send you herewith the Draught of a Frigate, by a very ingenious Officer in this service, which appears to Us peculiarly suitable for Our purpose, and We are in hopes of being able to ship Cordage and Sail Cloth, and Anchors &c. sufficient for Five or Six such Frigates, by the Time you can have them built. Though deprived of any intelligence from you since the...
14The American Commissioners to the Committee of Secret Correspondence, 12 March[–9 April 1777] (Franklin Papers)
LS : National Archives; L : British Library; copy: National Archives It is now more than 4 Months since Mr. Franklin’s Departure from Philadelphia, and not a Line from thence written since that time has hitherto reached either of your Commissioners in Europe. We have had no Information of what passes in America but thro’ England, and the Advices are for the most part such only as the Ministry...
15The American Commissioners to [the Committee of Secret Correspondence], 28 April 1777 (Franklin Papers)
Copy: Harvard University Library We wrote to you pretty fully on the State of Affairs here, in ours of the 12th of March and 19th of this Month, since which there has been little Alteration. There is yet no Certainty of a sudden Declaration of War, but the Preparations go on vigorously both here and in Spain, the Armies of france drawing towards the Sea Coasts, and those of Spain to the...
16From George Washington to Benjamin Harrison, 10 July 1775 [letter not found] (Washington Papers)
Letter not found: to Benjamin Harrison, 10 July 1775. On 21 July Harrison wrote to GW : “I received your very acceptable favor of the 10th Instant by express.”
17From George Washington to Benjamin Harrison, 19 August 1777 (Washington Papers)
If I did not misunderstand what you, or some other Member of Congress said to me respecting the appointment of the Marquis de, le, Fiatte, he has misceived the design of his appointment, or Congress did not understand the extent of his views, for certain it is, If I understand him , that he does not conceive his Commission is merely honorary; but given with a view to command a division of this...
18From George Washington to Benjamin Harrison, 5 October 1777 (Washington Papers)
[Pennypacker’s Mill, Pa.] 5 October 1777 . “A letter which accompanies this to congress will give an account of an unsuccessful attack upon the enemy in German town yesterday about day break—my extreme fatigue & hurry, and indeed want of knowledge of the causes which produced some great & capital disappointments do not allow me to be particular at this time. Things appeared in a very favorable...
19From George Washington to Benjamin Harrison, 14 October 1778 (Washington Papers)
Letter not found: to Benjamin Harrison, c.14 Oct. 1778. In an undated letter to GW, probably written sometime in November, Harrison wrote: “your favor by Mr Custis came to hand about three weeks after date” (see GW to Harrison, 18–30 Dec. 1778 , source note). On his return trip home to Virginia, Custis carried GW’s letter to Patrick Henry of 14 Oct. (see the source note to that document), and...
20From George Washington to Benjamin Harrison, 18–30 December 1778 (Washington Papers)
You will be so obliging as to present the inclosed to the House when oppertunity, & a suitable occasion offers. I feel very sensibly the late honorable testimony of their remembrance—to stand well in the good opinion of my Countrymen constitutes my chief happiness; and will be my best support under the perplexities and difficulties of my present Station. The mention of my lands in the back...
21From George Washington to Benjamin Harrison, 5–7 May 1779 (Washington Papers)
Your favor of the 8th of Feby arrivd safe by Colo. Mead abt the 10th of Apl —It conveyed to me a two fold pleasure; 1st to hear that you were ready to obey the call of your Country in a representatn of it and 2dly that yo. cd do it with more ease & convenience to your Affairs than formerly. If my time would permit, and it was proper & safe by the Post to go into a free discussion of the...
22From George Washington to Benjamin Harrison, 25 October 1779 (Washington Papers)
Letters of a private nature & for the mere purposes of friendly intercourse are, with me, the production of too much haste to allow time (generally speaking) to take, or make fair copies of them —and my memory (unfortunately for me) is of too defective a frame to furnish the periods at which they were written—But I am much mistaken if I have not, since I came to the prest Incampmt, wrote you a...
23From George Washington to Benjamin Harrison, 18 January 1784 (Washington Papers)
I have just had the pleasure to receive your letter of the 8th—for the friendly & affectionate terms in which you have welcomed my return to this Country & to private life; & for the favourable light in which you are pleased to consider, & express your sense of my past services, you have my warmest & most grateful acknowledgments. That the prospect before us is, as you justly observe, fair,...
24Enclosure: John Beckley to Benjamin Harrison, 2 April 1784 (Washington Papers)
I do myself the honor to enclose your Excellency a Copy of the resolution of Assembly, voting a Bust in honor of the Marquis Fayette, and to inform you that the Speaker communicated to both Houses of Assembly the Marquis’s Letter of acknowledgment —and am, with due respect, Your Excellencys Most obedt & humble servt ALS , DLC:GW . John Beckley (1757–1807) arrived in Virginia from England in...
25From George Washington to Benjamin Harrison, 14 June 1784 (Washington Papers)
Long as the enclosed letter & petition appear to have been written, they never came to my hands until thursday last; the latter, altho’ called a copy, having the marks of an original paper; another copy accompanying it, inducing a belief that it is so, I delay not a moment to hand it forward. My being perfectly ignorant of the laws of the Commonwealth, & unacquainted, if such confiscations...
26From George Washington to Benjamin Harrison, 22 July 1784 (Washington Papers)
I have had the honor to receive your favor of the 2d—What you have asked of the Secretary at War, if obtained, is all I conceive essential to illucidate the accounts of the old & present impositions on the public—the rolls in the pay office might serve as checks to those of the Musters; but where all these are to be met with, I know not, as the Troops of Virginia were, by order of Congress,...
27From George Washington to Benjamin Harrison, 10 October 1784 (Washington Papers)
GW’s letter to Governor Harrison marks his return to public life as the leader of a movement to form a public company for improving the navigation of the upper Potomac and linking it with the waters of the Ohio. He first became deeply involved in schemes for opening up the Potomac in the early 1770s (see particularly the source note and its references in Thomas Johnson to GW, 18 June 1770 )....
28From George Washington to Benjamin Harrison, 22 January 1785 (Washington Papers)
It is not easy for me to decide by which my mind was most affected upon the receipt of your letter of the 6th inst.—surprize or gratitude: both were greater than I have words to express. The attention & good wishes which the Assembly have evidenced by their act for vesting in me 150 shares in the navigation of each of the rivers Potomac & James, is more than mere compliment—there is an...
29From George Washington to Benjamin Harrison, 18 December 1785 (Washington Papers)
I have had the honor to receive your letter of the 7th inst: enclosing an Act of the General Assembly, which passed at my request. This new proof of the confidence repos’d in me by my Country, lays me under additional obligations to it; and I am equally sensible of its favors, and the polite & friendly wishes with which you accompanied the act. If the etiquette of business makes it necessary...
30From George Washington to Benjamin Harrison, 24 September 1787 (Washington Papers)
In the first moments after my return I take the liberty of sending you a copy of the Constitution which the Fœderal Convention has submitted to the People of these States. I accompany it with no observations—your own Judgment will at once descover the good, and the exceptionable parts of it. and your experience of the difficulty’s which have ever arisen when attempts have been made to...