To Benjamin Franklin from Samuel Cooper Johonnot, 21 April 1784
From Samuel Cooper Johonnot
ALS: American Philosophical Society
Boston 21st April 1784
Hon’d Sir—
I arriv’d here the 12th Jany., after a Voyage, & Journey, exceedingly laborious, & disagreeable.— Fourteen Days sooner, I could have had the Satisfaction, of seeing my Grandpappa.— Why did I arrive later?— I acknowledge the Fault. It will not bear Reflection:— May the Lesson prove as useful, as ’tis severe. I really deserv’d a harder Stroke, than Your friendly Reproach, which I rec’d at Nantes.7 From the 16th Septr., to the 22’d of Decr., I was floating between Nantes, & Baltimore. I am now in Boston, having had my Degree of Batchelor of Arts, last Year.8 I expect to study, 12 or 18 Months, as a Graduate, at Harvard College: then, to enter Judge Sullivan’s Office, as a Candidate for the Bar.9 My hon’d Grandpappa has left Me one Third of his estate, the income of which, will, it is expected, with Œconomy, compleat my Education; & at 21, set Me out handsomely in the world. Meanwhile, Sir, let me beg the continuation of your useful Correspondence; & though I may have been heedless, I still presume, to ask your good Advice. My future Behaviour will prove whether I deserve it.—
As I know Ben would not receive an Apology, for not writing to Him, I will not make One. A Letter, shortly, will be the best Method of appeasing Him. You have so many abler Correspondents, that it would be equally presumptuous & useless, to write any thing concerning the state of Affairs; But, though many write with more Elegance, none can with more Gratitude, Esteem, & Affection,—than Your humble Servant,
Sam’l Cooper Johonnot.
P.S. Grandmama acknowledges the Receipt of your Letter, dated 26 of December;1 & desires her best Regards. Please to remember me affectionately, to your two Grandsons.
Addressed: A Son Excellence / Monsr. le Doctr. Franklin / Ministre Plenipotentiàire des Etats / Unis de l’Amerique, près sa Majesté / tres Chretienne. / à Passy près Paris.
7. XL, 488. Johonnot’s grandfather, Samuel Cooper, died on Dec. 29: XLI, 372.
8. In June, 1783, Samuel Cooper (a member of the Harvard Corporation) arranged for Harvard to award Johonnot a bachelors degree in absentia at the upcoming commencement to credit him for his studies in Geneva: Cooper to Johonnot, June 23, 1783 (Yale University Library); Charles W. Akers, The Divine Politician: Samuel Cooper and the American Revolution in Boston (Boston, 1982), pp. 168, 183, 215, 356, 426n.
9. James Sullivan (XXXVIII, 77n) was a close friend of Cooper’s. On Dec. 17, 1783, upon hearing that young Johonnot would be sailing into Philadelphia, he addressed a letter to him there, urging him to come to Boston as soon as possible on account of his grandfather’s failing health. Johonnot endorsed it as not having been received in time: Yale University Library. A few weeks after Cooper’s death, Sullivan received permission from the Suffolk County bar to take Johonnot “into his office as a student”: George Dexter, ed., Suffolk County Bar Book: 1770–1805 (Cambridge, Mass., 1882), p. 19. Johonnot practiced law in Portland, Maine, from 1789 to 1791, and subsequently moved to Demerara (part of present-day Guyana), where he became U.S. consul. He died there in 1806: James D. Hopkins, An Address to the Members of the Cumberland Bar … (Portland, 1833), p. 59; Jefferson Papers, XXV, 308, 309n; W. W. Abbot, et al, eds., The Papers of George Washington, Presidential Series (18 vols. to date, Charlottesville and London, 1987– ), XII, 233n.
1. Samuel Cooper’s widow was Judith Bulfinch Cooper. BF had dined with her on at least one occasion, in 1775: XXII, 387n; Akers, The Divine Politician, pp. 18, 208. The letter she here acknowledges was written to her husband: XLI, 350–2.