To Benjamin Franklin from George Hobart, [before 21 October 1781]
From George Hobart2
AL: American Philosophical Society
Sunday Hôtel de Chartres Rue Riche[lieu] [before October 21, 1781]3
Mr Hobarts best Respects wait upon Mr Franklin. Has sent him enclos’d a Letter from governor Pownall, & a Book.4 Mr Hobart has also a Paper to communicate to him from the same,5 which he will wait upon Mr Franklin with any Day which may be most convenient except Wednesday & Saturday in the ensuing Week.
Addressed: A Monsieur / Monsieur Franklin / &c &c &c / dans Son Hotel / Passy.
2. The friend to whom Thomas Pownall entrusted the letter to BF which we publish at the end of July, Hobart (1731–1804) was a younger son of John, 1st Earl of Buckinghamshire and later served as secretary of the British embassy in St. Petersburg: Namier and Brooke, House of Commons, II, 627.
3. When Hobart wrote his first extant dated letter, immediately below; although we cannot be certain, the present letter seems to have preceded it. Oct. 21 was a Sunday so the most likely dates are Oct. 14 or 28.
4. The letter from Pownall probably was the one mentioned above and the book almost certainly was his anonymously published A Memorial, Mostly Humbly Addressed to the Sovereigns of Europe, on the Present State of Affairs between the Old and New World (London, 1780).
5. Not found but it was likely related to the desire Pownall expressed in his July letter to “strike out something” that might arrest or avert the ruin hanging over Britain and America.