Moses Franks and the French and Indian War. Manuscript Collection consisting of one Autograph Letter Signed; Letter Signed by Lord Ilchester and nine Letters Signed by Ilchester and James Cresset.

These letters to the British Treasury deal with the supply of provisions to British troops in America during the French and Indian War. They are of great interest for the early history of Jews in America, as the contractor for the supplies mentioned throughout the letters was Moses Franks (1718-89), the older brother of David Franks, the noted Philadelphia Jewish merchant. Together with his brother, he left New York for Philadelphia in 1738, and shortly thereafter relocated to London. Civilian suppliers were vital to the efforts of any European power with a foothold in the New World, and Jews had served in this capacity since the seventeenth century. No Jewish family played a greater role in supplying British troops in the Americas than the Franks family, which was active in this field by the 1730s. (The family was represented on the continent by 1696.) Their activity on behalf of the Crown increased until their firm became the chief military suppliers during the French and Indian War. This was of no small importance, as “England’s war effort had bogged down during the mid-1750’s, due in no small part to the breakdown of army supply, but conditions improved materially when Moses Franks and his syndicate took over … It was his syndicate, the largest among the army purveyors, that secured the contracts for victualling his majesty’s forces in North America” (J. R. Marcus, Colonial American Jew, vol. 2, p. 715). Moses Franks also engaged in commerce, shipping and banking in America. The syndicate’s most important agents in America were in New York and Philadelphia, with the latter being represented by David Franks. Moses’s experience as a purveyor for the British during the French and Indian War prepared him to perform the same task during the American Revolutionary War. Moses’s earlier assistance to the Crown during the French and Indian War was unknown to Wolf and Whiteman, who do not mention this fact in their comprehensive History of the Jews of Philadelphia. Provenance: This important collection originally belonged to John G. Bell and Sir Thomas Phillipps prior to passing to the ownership of H. P. Kraus, New York.