a similar copy to Melmoth. The incident inspired Melmoth to write a poem, "Impromptu, To Doctor Franklin For the Author who was present when he gave his Portrait to a Lady", which Pratt sent to Franklin. Franklin replied, apologising for not realising that Melmoth also wanted a copy of the portrait. The couple were by now experiencing serious financial problems — Pratt had already borrowed money from a friend, Mrs Montagu, and attempted to borrow money from Samuel Johnson) — and, on 29 January 1778, the day after receiving Franklin's response to Melmoth's poem, Pratt wrote to Franklin asking to borrow money from him, to which Franklin agreed. He then asked for a further loan four days later and, on 3 March begged Franklin for "a small allowance by week or month, in order to assist my slender Circumstances". A further request for money was made on 12 May, shortly before the "Melmoths" returned to England, to which Franklin replied that he found the requests for money "a greater inconvenience to myself than you perhaps imagined", but agreeing to the further loan, relying "on your Honour and Punctuality for the speedy Repayment". On 22 June 1778 Pratt wrote to Franklin from London regretting that he and Melmoth were unable to repay the money, whereupon the friendship with Franklin appears to have abruptly ended. By 1781 Pratt and Melmoth had separated, and Melmoth, retaining her professional surname, continued her acting career in Ireland. In 1793 she emigrated to the United States. Acting career In Britain and Ireland Melmoth made her stage debut in May 1773 at The Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin, playing Monimia in The Orphan. In late 1773 Melmoth and Pratt opened their own theatre in Drogheda, with a production of The Merchant of Venice, in which Melmoth played Portia to Pratt's Shylock, but the theatre failed and, after three months, the couple moved to London. In February 1774 she debuted at Covent Garden as Calista in The Fair Penitent. Westminster Magazine reviewed her performance with the words, "Her figure is pleasing and also she is young and handsome ... she possesses the internal as well as external requisites of a good actress; for she discovers great feeling and sensibility; and indeed promises to be a great ornament to the theatre". Later that year, also at Covent Garden, she played Roxana in Nathaniel Lee's The Rival Queens or The Death