Note 15 — Chapter VII · THE JOURNAL OF WILLIAM RUSSELL (1776-1783)
Reading edition
Under date of “Passy, 25 June, 1782,” Franklin wrote his friend Robert R. Livingston:
“I have long suffered with these poor brave men who with so much public virtue have endured four or five years’ hard imprisonment rather than serve against their country. I have done all I could toward making their situation more comfortable but their numbers were so great that I could do little for each, and that very great villain, Diggs, defrauded them of between three and four hundred pounds, which he drew from me on their account.”