To Benjamin Franklin from Graf von Schönfeld, 9 March 1783
From Graf von Schönfeld6
ALS: Library of Congress
Paris ce 9. Mars 1783
Monsieur
Permettés Monsieur, que j’aie l’honneur de Vous adresser le Sr: Bidermann Conseiller de la Cour de Saxe. Il desire infiniment d’avoir celui de Vous faire sa cour, et de Vous consulter sur l’intention où il seroit d’établir quelques branches de Commerce entre l’Amerique Septentrionale et la Saxe.7 Comme ce Sont également les Sentimens de ma Cour, ainsi que j’ai eu l’honneur de Vous en parler Monsieur, dès le premier moment de Votre arrivée dans ce pays,8 j’ose me flatter que Vous voudrés bien l’accueillir avec bonté et lui faire éprouver le Secours de Vos lumieres et de Votre protection.
Je Saisis cette occasion Monsieur, pour Vous renouveller l’assurance des Sentimens respectueux avec les quels j’ai l’honneur d’être Monsieur, Votre très hûmble et très obeïssant Serviteur
DE SCHÖNFELD.
6. Minister plenipotentiary at the French court of the Elector of Saxony from 1778 to 1785: XXVI, 171; Repertorium der diplomatischen Vertreter, III, 374. On Aug. 8, 1782, he announced to his government BF’s promise to help establish commercial relations between the United States and Saxony once peace was established. Shortly after the signing of the preliminary peace agreement on Jan. 20, BF asked Schönfeld for a list of Saxon manufactures. In a March 28 dispatch, Schönfeld reported providing BF with such a list and obtaining in exchange the names of RB and Jonathan Williams, Sr., as “les deux maisons les plus solides” of Philadelphia and Boston: William E. Lingelbach, “Saxon-American Relations, 1778–1828,” American Hist. Rev., XVII (1911–12), 520–1. Among BF’s papers at the APS is an undated, seven-page memoir extolling Saxony and the port of Hamburg, listing the chief Saxon exports, and discussing the potential market for American rice, tobacco, indigo, and furs.
7. BF did meet with him. On March 11 Ehrenhold Fredric Biedermann wrote BF from Paris, explaining that he had been given the present letter of introduction and requesting an appointment. On March 24 he sent a note reminding BF that he had promised letters of recommendation to some solid commercial houses in Philadelphia and Boston. APS.
8. His discussions with BF were unofficial, however, until the war was over: Horst Dippel, Germany and the American Revolution, 1770–1800 …, trans. Bernhard A. Uhlendorf (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1977), p. 39n.