Two months earlier, John Bartram had received a letter from Linnaeus dated 10 August 1750 [this letter has not come down to us]. He is surprised that it took so long to reach him, and he mentions that some pamphlets that Linnaeus had sent through Benjamin Franklin to Cadwallader Colden and John Clayton had met with a similar delay. Franklin was just about to send them on, as directed. Bartram had been travelling for a great part of 1751 and had found many new species of plants and shrubs, some of which are used in medicine. Bartram had sent Linnaeus a copy of a medical work [Bartram refers to his revision of Thomas Short’s, Medicina Britannica] and hopes it had been delivered. Bartram will send Linnaeus some specimens of plants next autumn, and he invites Linnaeus to let him know what sorts he is most interested in.
P.S. Pehr Kalm has not written to any of those he met in America, and they consider him rather ungrateful.