Franklin's Deputy Postmaster

Thomas Foxcroft signs this note with his title, Deputy Post Master. He was postmaster of Philadelphia, and his brother John Foxcroft was Franklin's partner as joint Deputy Postmaster General for the northern colonies. Franklin had held the Philadelphia office himself from 1737, and the post was the machinery by which he moved letters, newspapers and news between the colonies.

On 27 April 1768 Foxcroft promised Hugh Roberts, Treasurer of the Pennsylvania Hospital, ten pounds with lawful interest, to be paid on or before the first of April following, and bound himself in the penal sum of twenty pounds. Thomas Tillyer of the post office witnessed it. The note is written on the Hospital's printed form, with Foxcroft's name, the sums and the date filled in by hand.

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