Note 41 — LICENCE TO EXPORT TEA.
Reading edition
Thomas Wharton was a wealthy and influential merchant of Philadelphia, and of the sect called Quakers. In the enterprise of Galloway and Goddard to establish the "Chronicle," a leading newspaper, he was their partner, and the parties supposed that Franklin, who was a correspondent of Wharton's, on his return from England, would join them. In 1777, he was apprehended, and sent prisoner to Virginia, and at a later period was proscribed as an enemy to his country, and lost his estate, under the Confiscation Acts of Pennsylvania. His son, Thomas Wharton, Jr., was a distinguished Whig, and President of Pennsylvania. In the early part of the Revolution, and indeed until the time when blood was shed, father and son acted together, and were members of the same deliberative assemblies and committees.