To Benjamin Franklin from Lachlin MacLeane, 24 November 1767
From Lachlin MacLeane3
Copy: American Philosophical Society
Whitehall 24th Novr. 1767
Mr. Macleane presents his Compliments to Dr. Franklin, and sends him a Paragraph of a Letter from Sir Wm. Johnson relative to the Boundary Line behind Pensylvania.4 Mr. Macleane will do Himself the Pleasure of waiting on the Doctor some Day this Week.
[On the same page:]
Extract of a Letter from Sir Wm. Johnson to the Earl of Shelburne, dated
Johnson Hall 30th. May, 1767
“I am newly return’d from a Congress with the Six Nations at the German Flats which was partly convened at the Request of the Proprietaries of Pensylvania and Maryland, who were to obtain the Indians Consent to their Running the Division Line between the Governments over the Allegany Mountains, which I have at length effected, and delivered the Indians a Present from these Governments.”5
Endorsed: Whitehall Novbr. 1767 Mr. McCleans Note to Dr. Franklin and his Answer thereto.
3. Secretary to the Earl of Shelburne, secretary of state for the Southern Department. DNB.
4. Shelburne had asked that a search be made in his office and in that of the Board of Trade for any letters from Sir William Johnson regarding a boundary he purportedly had agreed to between lands open to white settlement and those strictly reserved to the Indians; below, pp. 324–5.
5. For BF’s reply, pointing out that this consent obtained from the Indians related to a very different matter from the one being investigated, see below, p. 329.