To Benjamin Franklin from Stephen Marchant, 5 February 1779
From Stephen Marchant5
ALS: American Philosophical Society
Dunkirck Febuary the 5the. 1779
Honrid Sir,
I having had an offer of Commanding a Privertere at this Place Be fore that I Cam to Parris and It Being a Bad time of the yere for to go to Boston I Consented for to Com Back and Exsept of the offer and I Cam Back and Found maturs to Sut very Well and the marchants are a going for to Send you a Letter for to Desire a Commission from you and I hope that you Will Be Plesd. For to Send one and In So Doing you Will a Blig me youre most a Bet. and himbel Sarvent
Stephen Marchant
mr. aronld Cam Back With me he that wars my mayt on Board of my Ship that I wars taken in—6
Addressed: Mr Francklan
Notation: Stephen Marchant Dunkerque Feb. 5. 1779—
5. An escaped prisoner to whom Lee and Adams had given 240 l.t. on Jan. 22: Taylor, Adams Papers, VII, 212; Alphabetical List of Escaped Prisoners. Although he was said to be from Boston (see Taverne Demont d’Hiver’s letter of Feb. 22), someone of his name appears in a 1775 affidavit as a member of a party appointed at New York by General Wooster: Naval Docs., II, 188. Eventually he became the captain, at least in title, of a privateer fitted out to capture prisoners for exchange: William B. Clark, Ben Franklin’s Privateers: a Naval Epic of the American Revolution (Baton Rouge, [1956]).
6. Jonathan Arnold also had been given 240 l.t. on Jan. 22: Taylor, Adams Papers, VII, 212; Alphabetical List of Escaped Prisoners (which gives the date as Jan. 23).