From Benjamin Franklin to [Edward Bancroft], [after 15 May 1778]
To [Edward Bancroft]
AL: Princeton University Library
[After May 15, 17782]
Be so good as to answer to our Friend that it is impossible Mr. Hartley could have said what is represented above, no such Thing having ever been intimated to him; nor has the least Idea of the kind ever been in the Minds of the Commissioners, particularly Dr. F. who does not Care how many Spies are plac’d about him by the Court of France having nothing to conceal from them.
2. On May 15 a letter, which can be identified by internal evidence as from Samuel Wharton to Bancroft, forwarded a report from London: David Hartley had told Lord Camden that morning that the commissioners were dissatisfied with their situation in Paris; they might as well be living in the Bastille, BF had complained, as “be exposed, as They were, to the Perpetual Observation of french ministerial Spies.” APS. We are convinced that Bancroft passed on the letter to BF, who returned it with this note.