Title: To Benjamin Franklin from George Croghan, 12 December 1765
From: Croghan, George
To: Franklin, Benjamin

Sir
Philadelphia 12th Decemr. 1765
As I am return’d to this City, after my long Tour thro’ the Indian Country, I do myself the honor of sending you a brief Journal of my Transactions, as I am persuaded, you are deeply interested in whatever respects the welfare of America. Ever since the Cession of Canada and its appendages to the British Crown, it has been found, that the French Settlements, in the Illinois Country, have been, as so many repositarys, for Amunition, &c, in order to enable the Indians in that quarter, on the Ohio, and the lakes &c, to carry on a War, with the Inhabitants of these provinces—wherefore, when Sir Jeffery Amherst commanded in America, he order’d a Regiment, under Major Loftus, to ascend the Missisipi and take possession of Fort Chartres, But the difficulty of the Navigation and the Opposition he met with, from the Indians, soon obliged him to drop his expedition and hasten back to Mobile.
The next Year, a general Indian War broke out; when Colo. Boquet and Colo. Broadstreet were placed at the head, of two small armys, to enter the Indian Country, by different Routs, in order to chastise them and facilitate the taking possession of the Ilinois.
How far they succeeded, is unnecessary for me to relate, as you are so well acquainted, with the History of that Campaign.
I returned from England last winter, when I found the General not a little distressed—In that, all his endeavours had hitherto failed, with respect to gaining the Ilinois. I therefore thought it the Duty of my Department, to propose to him that I would use my best endeavours with the Natives (with whom I had been long acquainted and flatterd myself, had some influence) to obtain their consent to His Majesty’s Troops, peaceably, possessing that Country. Which proposition he chearfully accepted off. At the same time, that I meditated this plan, Major Farmer was under orders from the General, to proceed with the 34th Regiment to the Ilinois—But being informed of the Vigorous opposition, he was like to meet with, from the Natives, he and Mr. Stuart (the latter, is Superintendant of Indian affairs, for the Southern department) dispatch’d Mr. Ross, an English Officer, and Mr. Hugh Crawford, an Interpretter to Fort Chartres, in order to negociate with them, and obtain their consent, to our Troops possessing that Fort. But these Gentlemen, had scarcely got there, before they were, at the Hazard of their lives, obliged to fly.
Upon their return, Major Farmer and Mr. Stewart (with the Generals approbation) sent a Second Deputation, which consisted of Mr. Sinnot (the Latters Deputy) and one Monsr. LaGutrie, formerly an Officer in the French Service, and furnished them with Goods, to a very great amount, in order to facilitate their negociations. But notwithstanding Pondiac and the other Chiefs, thought proper to accept of their presents—yet they were deaf to every requisition, respecting the Cession of the Country, and obliged these Gentlemen, hastily to return to Mobile.
Wherefore, the 34th Regiment has not yet been able to get to Fort Chartres. My Journal will inform you Sir, what Methods I pursued, in order to obtain the end of my embassy, and therefore, you will excuse my being here, more particular.
But no doubt, you must have heard of the great impediments thrown on my way, by the Lawless Inhabitants of Cumberland County, who bid difiance to all order and Government, by attacking and destroying a large quantity of Goods (part of which, I had bought for the Crowns Use and part belonged to Gentlemen in Philadelphia) that were, by my orders, going forward to Fort pitt whereby I was reduced to the most unhappy Situation—not having a proper Assortment for my Presents, nor scarcely any to open a trade with the several Tribes, who came there, in expectation of it, from a promise made by Colo. Boquet.
It is scarcely credible, but so it was, as I am informed, that there was a set of Men in the Province, who had the hardiness, even to espouse those Highwaymen’s Actions, nay threatned my life, if I returned into Cumberland County, and all this, only, because I judged it for the good of the Service, with Genl. Bouquets express approbation, (as I have satisfactorily, proved to his excellency General Gage) to desire some Gentlemen of this City, to send a Cargo of Merchandize to Fort pitt, there to be in readiness, to suply the Natives, so soon as the trade was opened.
This faction I am also told, have taken many unwarrantable libertys with my reputation, wherefore, I wrote the letter to Sir Wm. Johnson, which is annexed to my Journal. Thus much, I thot necessary Sir, to mention to you, as explanatary to this part, of that Letter.
In my public and private conferences with the Shawanese, Delawares and Weyondotts, and the Several other tribes, who had robbed and murderd our Traders, I very frequently represented to them, their unparalleled breach of Public faith, and that it, almost, compeled us to think them, unworthy of the least degree, of future confidence.
They as often expressed their sinsibility and Sorrow for it, and say’d, they were not only very willing but anxious, to make a REPARATION to the representatives of the unhappy Sufferers—Yet constantly urged, that they had no ways of doing it, except by a Surrender of a part of their Country, which they would most chearfully do, and especially of that part, which lies on this side of the River Ohio (on the back part of Virginia) as it was now, of no use to them, for Hunting Ground.
In my return to New York, I called at Sir William Johnson’s, where I was informed by him, That when he settled the preliminaries of Peace last spring, with the Deputys, of the above Tribes, he had also described to them, their faithless conduct towards the poor traders, and insisted, as one of the preliminary conditions of a pacification, that they should make them a restitution—to which, they as fully and chearfully consented, as they had before, done to me. But alledged, at the same time, that they had no other manner of doing it, except by requesting the representatives of the Murdered Traders, to accept from them, a part of their Country, on this side of the River Ohio. In compassion and in Justice, to the Creditors of the Traders, I think it my duty to give you this information.
You will be best able Sir, to determine, whether his Majesty’s Ministers, will judge it proper, to confirm to them, this Cession, of the Indians.
In point of Policy, I would most earnestly recommend, that it might be done, as it will be establishing, one of the very best Securities, for our future trade and of course, fixing a precident, that will be of inexpressible importance to the Nation. Indeed! from my knowledge of Indian Affairs, I am thoroughly convinced (as I can assure you, Sir William Johnson is) that no event could have happened, that will more effectually consolidate and Strengthen our Alliance, than the Completion of this—As they will ever hereafter, dread a declaration of War against us, from a Conviction, that no Peace will be made with them, untill they Surrender, a part of their Country, as a consideration for their perfidy.
From the best observations, I was able to make in my progress thro’ the Indian Country, I am fully of opinion, that they have the sincerest disposition to establish a Permanent Peace, with us. The effect of which, if properly improved, by us, will be a most extensive and profitable Fur trade; far exceeding, what I had any Idea of, before my excursion into the Ilinois Country.
It therefore, highly behoves the British Nation, immediately to put the Indian department, upon such a footing, as that the utmost attention may be paid to it, otherwise as the French are forming an establishment, on the West side of the Missisipi, about Sixty Miles from Fort Chartres; They will again engross all the Traffic, with the numerous Nations to the Westward of us, and thereby deprive us, of the present use, of our Canada Conquest.
The principle objection, to the proper Regulation of the Indian department, is, I am told, the Expence. You will therefore, I am convinced Sir, pardon me, for a moment, whilst I mention to you—that a Duty of Five per Cent., upon the trade, would raise more, than wou’d defray the whole disbursements, incurr’d by maintaining peace with the Natives, and regulating their commerce. This Tax Indeed! would be none to the Merchants, for they would necessarily, add it to the price of their Goods, and therefore, of consequence, the Indians themselves, wou’d pay the whole expence, of our negociations with them, and also of our superintending and regulating their Trade—of this, the Merchants here, are so fully sensible, that they have not, I assure you, the least objection to it, as they thereby flatter themselves, a safe and advantageous commerce, will be secured to them.
Upon referrence to my Journal, you will find, that a party of Keckapoo Indians, attacked me on the 8th. of June, in which affair, I was so unfortunate as to loose about £1500 Currency, great part of which was in Specie, that I was under an unavoidable necessity, of taking with me, in order to carry on my negociations, with the Indians, at the French Villages. I have therefore furnished the General, with my Account, and presented him with a Memorial, respecting the same, which he has promised to send to the Lords of the Treasury (as is always done, in similar Cases when any Losses are Suffered by any Officers, in the Service) with his opinion, that I ought to be reimbursed. I therefore Sir, take the Liberty to request the favour of you, to afford me your good Offices in this matter, as I flatter myself, you will be of opinion, that it is not reasonable, I ought to suffer in my private fortune, whilst I was risqing my Life, for His Majestys Service. I am with respect Sir, Your very obedient Humble Servant
Geo: Croghan
P.S. As I am doubtful whether Sir Wm. Johnson sent a Copy of my Negociations to the Lords of Trade by the last Packet, I wou’d just drop this hint that you may advert to it.
Benjamin Franklin Esquire

Endorsed: Letter from Col. Croghan Dec. 12. 1765. with his Journal. Indian Retribution in Lands His own Losses.


Title: From Benjamin Franklin to Deborah Franklin, 13 December 1765
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To: Franklin, Deborah

Dear Child,
London Dec. 13. 1765
I can only write one Line to let you know I am well, and shall write fully to you and all my Friends as soon as [the] Parliament adjourns for the Holidays, which it will do next Week. I receiv’d [your] kind Letters per Friend and per the Packet. My Love to Sally and all Friends. I am, Your ever affectionate Husband
B Franklin


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from Francis Hopkinson, 13 December 1765
From: Hopkinson, Francis
To: Franklin, Benjamin

My dear Friend
Philada. Decr. 13th. 1765
By this Time I hope his Lordship has recieved our Letters, and as the Bishops always spend their Winter in London it is probable he may have desired a Conversation with you on the Discovery of his Family, and has made more particular Enquiries about his Relations in Philadelphia; And very happy do we esteem ourselves in having a Friend in England to answer such Enquiries, on whom we know we may depend, and who will give our Characters every favourable Representation consistent with Truth.
You advised me in your last to send Mr. Burrows a small present of Sturgeon or Apples with a Letter of Thanks for his Kindness. I did write such a Letter before I recieved your Advice; but was so stupid that I never thought of the other; I fear such a thing would be improper now as being so late, that it will appear to be done in Consequence of your Advice, and not our own free Act: But I will write the best Apology I can and ship some Sturgeon for him; the Letter shall be enclosed with this to you; and if you should think the present too insignificant or too late you can destroy the Letter and make what Use of the Sturgeon you please.
I wrote to you by a Vessel for Liverpool some Time ago which I hope you will recieve. I visited your Family the Day before Yesterday and put Miss Sallys Harpsichord in the best Order I could but the Instrument, as to the Touch and all Machinery, is entirely ruined and I think past Recovery. The Tone I shall always think good as long as it has any; but the Touch is indeed so uncomfortable that Sally has but little Inducement to practise; and the Machinery from the Beginning was so complex; that it was almost impossible for any one to keep it in Order but the Man who made it: And as Miss Sally really plays very well, I think it would be very proper to sell this and buy her a new Harpsichord of a more simple Construction. I have got one of Kirchman’s double Harpsichords with a Swell and piano Movement, which gives me the greatest Satisfaction—I wish Miss Sally had such another—But we will talk more about this next Spring.
I have finished the Translation of the Psalms of David, to the great Satisfaction of the Dutch Congregation at New York and they have paid me £145 their Currency which I intend to keep as a Body Reserve in Case I should go to England. I will now go out and look for some Sturgeon; and as I must say something more about it in the Bottom of this Page, I will take the opportunity, whilst I have Room, of assuring you that I am, with great Gratitude for all your Goodness, Your sincere and much obliged Friend
Fras. Hopkinson
P.S. I have put on Board the Ship which was Capt. Budden’s; (but one Powell goes Master of her this Voyage) One Kegg of Sturgeon and One Barrel of Pippins marked Stores and branded on the Side RR this I did to avoid the Trouble of their being entered &c. in the Custom House.


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from William Franklin, 17 December 1765
From: Franklin, William
To: Franklin, Benjamin

Honoured Sir,
Burlington, Decbr: 17. 1765
You will probably have heard before this reaches you of the Return of Col. Croghan, and the Success he every where met with in his Negotiations with the Indians. Frequent Attempts (some of them very expensive) had been before fruitlessly made by the Military to take Possession of the Illinois. And tho’ that valuable Country has of Right belonged to us ever since the Cession of Canada, yet we were not able by any Means to get it into our Hands, until Col. Croghan engaged in the Undertaking. By his great Influence with the Indians, and dextrous Management, he has entirely surmounted all the Obstacles which the French had contrived to throw in the Way; and obtained full Permission from the several Nations in that Quarter for the English to enter their Country, and possess themselves of the several Forts, &c. occupied by the French; which has I hear accordingly been done, by Capt: Stirling an Officer in the Regulars, who was detached for that Purpose with a Party from Fort Pitt.
The commercial Advantages which must result to Great Britain, by our Traders having free Access to so extensive a Country, inhabited by numerous Indian Nations, are too obvious to need mentioning. We have now Besides, an opportunity of forming such Alliances and Connections with the Nations on the Waters of the Missisipi as will put it in our Power to get Possesion of the remaining Part of Louisiana, whenever another War shall make it expedient. In short, the Services which Col. Croghan has rendered his Country on this Occasion are such as Must, if rightly improved, be productive of the greatest Benefit to the British Interest in America. And I cannot at present conceive any Measure so likely to obtain this desireable End as the Putting the Management of Indian Affairs under some such Regulations as were contain’d in the Plan sent over last year by the Ministry, to the several Governors on the Continent.
I doubt not but it will likewise afford you great Pleasure to hear that Sir Wm: Johnson and Col. Croghan have had the Address to engage the Indians to agree to settle a Boundary between them and us, and to make Retribution for the Damages they did our Traders by their late Hostilities. These two Points, if carried into Execution, will in all Probability, render the Peace lately concluded with them more permanent than any we have yet experienced. For in the first Place, as the Boundary to the Westward will, I am told, be fixed as far back as the Ohio, there will be little Danger of our making any Encroachments on their Hunting Grounds, for many years to come, whereby a considerable Cause of Discontent will be avoided; And, in the next Place the Establishing a Precedent for the Indians making Satisfaction for Injuries done our Traders, will make them much more cautious of committing the like hereafter. At present we have got them in the Temper to do it, and it will be unpardonable if we suffer the Opportunity to slip. Indeed, in my Opinion, no Time should be lost in bringing this Affair to a Termination and I hope the Ministry will give Orders to Sir William to push it with the utmost Expedition. If it is much longer delayed there will be Danger that the present good Dispositions of the Indians may cool; or that they may be persuaded to act otherwise by the artfull Insinuations of the French, or by the Suggestions of evil disposed Persons among ourselves.
What makes it more immediately the Interest of the Crown to accept of this Grant from the Indians, and to confirm it to the Sufferers, is, that the Indians will of course expect to be paid for all the Lands which they are to grant within the Boundary they have now agreed to make between them and the English, unless their offer of Part of those Lands to the Sufferers be accepted. But the greater the Tract within the Boundary which they can be persuaded to grant to the Sufferers, the less the Crown will be under a Necessity of purchasing. And the Crown may notwithstanding receive the same Advantages in Point of Revenue from these Lands, tho’ they cost the Crown Nothing, as it does from the Lands heretofore bought of the Indians. For the Sufferers would consent (if required) to pay the usual Quit rent reserved by the Crown, at the expiration of 20 or 25 Years: And an Exemption from Quit rent for that term has been common in several of His Majesty’s Colonies.
I wrote you a few Lines in haste on this Subject by Capt: Budden; but as it is a Matter of great Importance, not only to the Sufferers (some of whom are our particular Friends) but to the Interest of the Crown, and the Publick Wellfare, I doubt not but you will excuse this further Trouble; and that you will on these Considerations lose no Time in representing the Affair in its proper Light to the Ministry, and forward it all that may be in your Power.
Enclosed is a Copy of a Letter Col. Croghan sent you by Budden. I am, Honoured Sir, Your ever dutiful Son
Wm: Franklin
To Benjn. Franklin, Esqr London

Endorsed: Govr. Franklin’s Letter, Dec. 17. 1765Boundary in Indian Country Retribution to be made in Lands by the Indians to the Merchants.


Title: “F.B.”: First Reply to Tom Hint, [19 December 1765]
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To:

In The Pennsylvania Chronicle, and Universal Advertiser, Feb. 9–16, 1767, the printer, William Goddard, reprinted several letters from English newspapers which he prefaced with the following note: “Agreeable to our Promise, we now lay before our Readers three of the Pieces wrote and published by Dr. Franklin, in Defence of North-America, and in Answer to the Writers who stiled themselves Tom Hint and Vindex Patriae, extracted from several English News-Papers sent us by a Correspondent.” In later issues Goddard reprinted other Franklin letters. An undated memorandum in Franklin’s hand among his papers in the Library of Congress (fo. 170) lists the pieces of which Franklin acknowledged authorship.
The letter printed below is the first that Goddard reprinted and that Franklin acknowledged. It was in reply to a letter signed by “Tom Hint” printed in the Gazetteer, Dec. 13, 1765. That letter was a blanket condemnation of the wealthier colonists who opposed the Stamp Act. It particularly condemned the riotous proceedings in New York in early November and called for an army officer “of spirit, resolution, and steadiness, with a very small corps” of British troops to inflict deserved punishment on the Americans.

To the Printer.
I beg room in your impartial paper for a word or two with your correspondent of Friday Last, who subscribes himself Tom Hint.
He tells us, that he lived many years in that part of the world, and is pleased to assert roundly, that “the most opulent inhabitants of America are of selfish, mean dispositions, void of public spirit; and that they took every occasion (during the late war, it seems) of obstructing the King’s measures, when they in the least interfered with their particular interests.”
It is a heavy charge this: and as I too have lived many years in that country, I have reason to know that it is a charge without foundation; and that the very reverse is true.
I would therefore ask this writer, if he has never learnt that calumniating even a single person behind his back, to increase differences between friends, is unworthy a gentleman; and that stabbing in the dark is unbecoming a soldier and an officer? Whether he does not think that calumniating the principal people of twelve or thirteen colonies, to incite the mother country to sheath the sword in the bowels of her children, is not infinitely more wicked? and the doing this under a feigned name, at three thousand miles distance from the parties injured, proportionably more mean, base, and cowardly?
I call upon him, therefore, to name those opulent persons, and point out the instances, putting his own name openly and fairly to his accusation; or take to himself in private the conscious shame that belongs to such baseness, aggravated by a recollection of the generous hospitality he personally met with in the country he has so unworthily abused.
F. B.


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from James Parker, 20 December 1765
From: Parker, James
To: Franklin, Benjamin

Honoured Sir
Burlington, Decemb. 20. 1765
My last to you was the Beginning of November last, very short, as I was then taken with the Gout in my Hand, and could scarce write at all: I had just then received yours of the Middle of Sept. with the Invoice of the Goods you sent to Mr. Hughes of New-York: I immediately wrote to a Friend at New-York, as I was unable to Stir myself: They arrived just after the Letter got there: Mr. Hughes was quite willing not to receive them, as he says he had desired positively but a few Things, but that let Matters go as they might with him, you should not suffer by him, but thought the Electrical Machine vastly dearer, than what he understood from you: The Goods, or Case of them, was delivered to my Order, and as you said you would write largely by Capt. Robinson, and I very poorly, I chose to let Things lye in Statu quo, till I heard farther from you; but Robinson, there is no News yet of, and last Night the Packet Letters of Octob. arriving here, and I not having a Line from you, Things remain still so: Having Information that the Packet is going immediately back, I have attempted this: Mr. Holt offered to take the Goods, and sell ’em, either on Commissions, or to purchase them on Trust but I answered him, I stood already engaged to you, on his Account, for more than I could well pay, and could not run the Risk of any more: Indeed every Farthing I owe, you, is for those Effects that he has had, and I durst not trust him any farther: for I can get but little of him, whilst I must pay you. The Beginning of November I being taken with the Gout, it held me about a Fortnight, when Mr. Foxcroft wanting me a little at Philadelphia, and I was not quite well, I went down there, and I catch’d Cold, and on my Return was taken with a Relapse more violent than the first, both Feet and Hands, which has held me ever since, that I can but just crawl about, tho’ I am in good Hopes it is now going off, only one Ancle having it yet any Thing painful: Assoon as I get well recovered, I will go to New-York and take all the Measures I can to dispose of those Goods and secure your Interest: I have not been able to proceed any farther with Mr. Hall’s Accounts, have proceeded, and I shall assoon as I am able: This Distemper of the Gout has been as severe this Winter as any I have had for some Years; It always discourages me in proceeding on any Thing: tho’ Mr. Hall has wrote to me, desiring I would proceed: Indeed I would if I could: But I have not only been ailing myself: but my Son has been exceedingly afflicted with a sweating Fever and Ague, for near three Months that rendered him quite at Death’s Door, and we thought he would not have survived it: he is a little mended now, but yet but poorly: I hope he will get over it, if it does not turn into a Consumption, of which tis said, these are some Symptoms. I have had a good deal of Sickness otherways in my Family which has made my coming to Burlington of small Advantage: However its all for the best: Had I been at Woodbridge, its probable I should have gone to New-York, in Obedience to your Commands: but then if I had, as I have been assured that Office would have taken up every Moment of my Time, how should I have found any to have done any Thing for you with Mr. Hall? So that upon the Whole, it may be the best that I don’t go there till the Spring: I should be sorry, if my Delay in going thither should be taken amiss, as you hint; but if it is so, I cannot help it: tho’ I am thankful for your Good-Will in procuring it, I have no great Idea of any Advantage it may be, as Mr. Nicholls observes, the Labour is vastly superior to the Benefit of it: However, as it is expected I go there, while I have the Post Office, I am making Preparations, and will try the Experiment, if I live. I wrote to you to beg to know, what I shall do with the Press and Materials I have here late Benj. Mecom’s, as I will deliver them to your Order at Philadelphia. I have finished the Book of S. Smiths, and my Hands are all gone to New-York and Woodbridge, where I should have followed, but for my Illness. I hear but little from Benj. Mecom, and as I receive no Rent from him as he promised, I fear he makes out but indifferently: tho’ ever since last Spring, in Order to make him pay the Post-Office Money the better, it has been thought best, for him to pay Half the Hartford Rider’s Allowance, which he can do in Connecticut Money, and so take off that Burthen from Mr. Colden—and the other half by Hartford and Middletown Offices, will enable them to pay their Arrears also better, and save so much of Mr. Colden’s: and this B. Mecom has done ever since, which is the chief Benefit, I think I have hitherto found from him. As to publick Affairs, you will have doubtless better Accounts than I can give you; tho’ all our Colonies appear to me, to be in a distracted Condition, God knows where it will end—With all our humble Compliments, I remain Your most obliged Servant
James Parker

Addressed: For / Benjamin Franklin, Esqr. / Craven-Street / London
Endorsed: J Parker Dec 20. 1765


Title: “F.B.”: Second Reply to Tom Hint, [23 December 1765]
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To:

This is the second of Franklin’s letters that William Goddard reprinted in The Pennsylvania Chronicle, and Universal Advertiser, Feb. 9–16, 1767, and of which Franklin later acknowledged authorship. “Tom Hint” had responded to Franklin’s first letter in the Gazetteer of December 23. In answer to the demand that he put his own name “openly and fairly to his accusation,” the writer explained that “I am a mere phantom, created only for hinting to my country the danger it may be in from the disaffection of its children, but not at all concerned with individuals.” As to Franklin’s reminder “of the generous hospitality he [Tom Hint] personally met with in the country he has so unworthily abused,” “Mr. Hint” declared that “I never did taste of their hospitality”; and with regard to the public spirit of the Americans he recalled the ungenerous reception given to Lord Loudoun’s troops “by New Yorkers and Albanites”—an allusion to the hostility shown when the general had proposed to quarter troops in private houses.

To the Printer.
[December 23, 1765]
Your correspondent Tom Hint, who had roundly asserted, “that the most opulent inhabitants of America were of selfish mean dispositions, void of public spirit, and that they took every occasion (during the late war) of obstructing the King’s measures, &c.” repeats the charge in your paper of this day. “I did, says he, accuse in the lump the leading men of America, and their recent behaviour too fully proves the truth of my accusation.” To your reasoning readers it must be submitted, how far a recent fact, be it ever so true, can be said fully to prove, or even to prove at all, the truth of former distinct facts, with which it has no connexion. But since he can no otherwise prove his affirmative assertion, I will take upon me (what no man is obliged to do) to prove my negation. I say then, that it is notorious the last war was begun, not for “the immediate protection” of the Americans, but for the protection of the British trade, carried on with British manufactures among the Indians in America: that the aids, granted yearly to the Crown, in dutiful compliance with its requisitions, by the several American assemblies, for maintaining that war, must have been granted by the influence of the leading men there; and that the most opulent inhabitants, as their taxes towards those aids were in proportion to their opulence, must therefore have contributed voluntarily and largely to the support of the King’s measures: that the colonies accordingly raised, cloathed, and paid near 25,000 men, for several years during that war, an expence far beyond their proportion. That the then minister, Mr. Pitt, was so fully sensible of this, that he recommended them to Parliament, as “meriting” some consideration for the “zeal (these are his words) active vigour and strenuous efforts” they had shewn and exerted from year to year: that the Parliament accordingly granted them yearly a bounty of £200,000 for several years, to be divided among them—not as a reimbursement or satisfaction; for they exhibited no accounts, and it was but a very small part of their expence (which amounted to some millions) but as an honourable and substantial acknowledgment of their services. For the truth of this I refer to the votes of the House of Commons of that time. These are indubitable proofs, that Mr. Hint can not only give the lie direct (as he expresses it) but that he can make it too. The single instance he hints at, as a proof of his accusation, viz. the dispute between the inhabitants of New York and the soldiery, concerning the quartering of troops by force on private houses; a thing odious to all Englishmen, inconsistent with their rights as such, and contrary to law, it is not to be wondered at if they refused to submit to it, or submitted to it unwillingly. Where a real necessity appears, no good man would refuse to shelter and entertain a soldier; but officers should take care how they create such necessity, by injudicious and unequal distributions of the troops, or with a wilful design of harassing and oppressing the King’s subjects, in order to extort emoluments to themselves.
If Mr. Hint thinks it prudent to enter into a more minute discussion of this point, I shall not be backward: In the mean time he will please to accept hint for hint. I am content to take his word for what he says of himself, “That though he lived many years in America, he never did taste of their hospitality;” and I frankly own, that he is then neither the man, nor of the order of men I took him to be. But I will, in return for his lie direct, tell him one plain truth, viz. That there never came a stranger from Britain or Ireland, to any part of British America, and particularly to New-York, with the least appearance of a gentleman, who did not taste at least, if not experience fully, the American hospitality; unless he made his first appearance there (as too many of Mr. HINT’s countrymen do) under the misfortune of an infamous character. And for proof of this plain truth, if it needs any, I refer to all the officers of the army, merchants, or other gentlemen, who have at any time had occasion to visit that part of the world (Mr. Thomas Hint only and alone excepted.) With him I shall drop all dispute about the opposition to the Stamp Act, and for the reason he gives, “That matter being now before the most respectable assembly in the world”; long may they continue so! I will only say, that a warm concern for what the Americans deem the indefeasible right of Englishmen, the power of granting their own money to the crown, however improperly or mistakenly they may have asserted that right, ought to, and will entitle them to some regard from every considerate Briton: And that their bleeding so freely through the whole war, both in their persons and purses, for the common cause, will, with all reasonable people, sufficiently evince, that their refusal to pay that tax, is neither from “selfishness, mean dispositions, ingratitude, or want of public spirit,” as Mr. Hint would have us believe; but from a strong sense of liberty, a public spirit that despises all selfish private considerations, and thence a determination to risque every thing rather than submit voluntarily to what they deem an unconstitutional exertion of power. If they are mistaken, ’tis their misfortune, not their fault. Your most celebrated writers on the constitution, your Seldens, your Lockes, and your Sidneys, have reasoned them into this mistake: Let your Grenville’s and your R----lls, if they can, reason them out of it. But keep your soldiers to join with theirs against your and their enemies: For military arguments, used in a political controversy, though they may silence, are extremely improper to convince.
F. B.


Title: “N.N.”: First Reply to Vindex Patriae, [28 December 1765]
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To:

This is the third of Franklin’s letters in the Gazetteer that Goddard reprinted in The Pennsylvania Chronicle, and Universal Advertiser, Feb. 9–16, 1767, and that Franklin later acknowledged he had written. It is a reply to a letter in the Gazetteer, Dec. 23, 1765, signed “Vindex Patriae.” For the most part, that contribution consisted in a general denunciation of the colonists and an insistence upon the right of Parliament to tax them. The writer denied that the reduction of colonial purchases of British imports, resulting from opposition to parliamentary enactments, would be a matter of any consequence, saying that “there is no man acquainted in America, who does not know that the Americans take nothing from us which they can do without, and that they smuggle as fast as they can upon their extensive coasts.” Franklin’s answer makes clear some of the other specific points to which he took exception. Further responses, one dealing with “Vindex Patriae’s” somewhat irrelevant criticism of American breakfasts, will appear in the next volume of this edition.

To the Printer.
I would fain know what good purpose can be answered, by the frequent invectives published in your and other papers against the Americans. Do these small writers hope to provoke the nation by their oratory, to embrue its hands in the blood of its, perhaps mistaken children? And if this should be done, do they imagine it could be of any advantage to this country? Do they expect to convince the Americans, and reduce them to submission, by their flimsey arguments of virtual representation, and of Englishmen by fiction of law only, mixed with insolence, contempt, and abuse? Can it be supposed that such treatment will make them rest satisfied with the unlimited claim set up, of a power to tax them ad libitum, without their consent; while they are to work only for us, and our profit; restrained in their foreign trade by our laws, however profitable it might be to them; forbidden to manufacture their own produce, and obliged to purchase the work of our artificers at our own prices? Is this the state we wish to keep them in? And can it be thought such writings (which are unfortunately reprinted in all their papers) will induce them to bear it with greater patience, and during a longer period of time?
The gentle terms of republican race, mixed rabble of Scotch, Irish and foreign vagabonds, descendants of convicts, ungrateful rebels &c. are some of the sweet flowers of English rhetorick, with which our colonists have of late been regaled. Surely, if we are so much their superiors, we should shew the superiority of our breeding by our better manners! Our slaves they may be thought: But every master of slaves ought to know, that though all the slave possesses is the property of the master, his good-will is his own, he bestows it where he pleases; and it is of some importance to the master’s profit, if he can obtain that good-will at the cheap rate of a few kind words, with fair and gentle usage.
These people, however, are not, never were, nor ever will be our slaves. The first settlers of New England particularly, were English gentlemen of fortune, who, being Puritans, left this country with their families and followers, in times of persecution, for the sake of enjoying, though in a wilderness, the blessings of civil and religious liberty; of which they retain to this day, as high a sense as any Briton whatsoever; and possess as much virtue, humanity, civility, and let me add, loyalty to their Prince, as is to be found among the like number of people in any part of the world; and the other colonies merit and maintain the same character. They should then be treated with decency and with candour.

Your correspondent Vindex Patriae, who is indeed more of a reasoner than a railer, has nevertheless thought fit to assert, that “their refusing submission to the stamp-act, proceeds only from their ambition of becoming independent; and that it is plain the colonies have no other aim but a total enfranchisement from obedience to our Parliament.” These are strong charges; but the proofs of such ambitious and rebellious views no where appear in his paper. He has, however, condescended to give us his proofs of another point, viz. “That the colonies have no tenderness for their mother country;” (and of course I suppose, the mother country is to have none for them.) “The sugar, teas, and other commodities, says he, which they daily buy from St. Eustatia and Monte Christi, in particular, are too convincing proofs, that they have no tenderness for their mother country.” May one ask this profound writer; are sugar and teas the produce of the mother country? does not she herself buy her teas from strangers? were the north americans to buy all the sugars they consume, even of our own Islands, would not that raise the price of such sugars upon us here in England? is not then their buying them of Foreigners, if it proves any thing, a Proof rather of their tenderness for their mother country? But the grocerly argument of tea and sugar, is not inferior to the lawyerly argument with which he demonstrates, that, “by a fiction between us and the colonists, Connecticut is in England, and therefore represented in the British parliament.” I am afraid the common Americans will be as much at a loss as I am, to understand what he means by his estoppers, and his averments, and therefore not in the least convinced by his demonstration. They will only find out upon the whole, that he is not their friend; and perhaps conclude from that and his learning in the law, that he is one of their virtual representatives by fiction in P—t.

I hope, however, to see prudent measures taken by our rulers, such as may heal and not widen our breaches. The Americans, I am sure, for I know them, have not the least desire of independence; they submit, in general, to all the laws we make for them; they desire only a continuance of what they think a right, the privilege of manifesting their loyalty by granting their own money, when the occasions of their prince shall call for it. This right they say they have always enjoyed and exercised, and never misused; and they think it wrong that any body of men whatever, should claim a power of giving what is not their own, and make to themselves a merit with the sovereign and their own constituents, by granting away the property of others who have no representatives in that body, and therefore make no part of the common consent in parliament, by which alone, according to magna charta and the petition of right, taxes can be legally laid upon the subject. These are their notions. They may be errors; ’tis a part of our common constitution perhaps not hitherto sufficiently considered. ’Tis fit for the discussion of wise and learned men, who will, I doubt not, settle it wisely and benevolently. Cowardice and cruelty are indeed almost inseparable companions, and none are more ready to propose sending out fleets and armies, and to expose friends and foes to one common carnage, than such pusillanimous men as would tremble at a sword drawn in their presence tho’ with the most peaceable Intention. But Britons, as a people, are equally brave and generous; prodigal of their blood and treasure where there are just calls for its expence; and by no means niggards of those rights, liberties and privileges, that make the subjects of Britain the envy and admiration of the universe.
N. N.


Title: From Benjamin Franklin to Mary Stevenson, 31 December 1765
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To: Hewson, Mary (Polly) Stevenson

Dear Polly
Tuesday Dec. 31. [1765]
Thanks to you for the Garters, and for the Lines that accompany them; the Knitting of the latter is as even and as pretty as that of the former, and the Work much more durable, for with me it will never wear out. Your Mama is pretty well, and gone abroad. We purpose to be at Kensington tomorrow and hope to have the Pleasure of finding you all well. I am Your truly affectionate Friend and humble Servant
B Franklin


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from Edward Bridgen, [1765–1775]
From: Bridgen, Edward
To: Franklin, Benjamin

None of the following notes can be dated with precision; it is possible that some may have been written during BF’s first mission, while others may have been composed as late as 1775. They are placed here because they seem to the editors to belong to the second mission, and in accordance with editorial practice because this is the earliest year in which they are likely to have been written during that mission—Franklin was, it is true, in England during the last three weeks of 1764 but he was “severely handled by a most violent Cold” and hence was unlikely to have written or received many invitations or similar brief notes during that period.

Pater Noster Row Monday Morn [1765–1775]
Mr. Bridgen’s Compliments to Dr: Franklin and begs the favour that he will send per the bearer the map he was so kind to promise him.


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from Mather Byles, [1765–1766]
From: Byles, Mather
To: Franklin, Benjamin

Sir;
[1765–1766]
It was with great Surprize and Pleasure, that I received your Picture, from Philadelphia. And it is with no little Pride, that when the Picture introduces talk of the Original, a Theme always pleasing to the Lovers of Learning, that I can pronounce, “This was sent me by Dr. Franklin himself.”
But my Ambition has been strangly augmentd by a Copy of a Letter from London written by You to some unknown Person, in which You Honour me with a Character so far beyond any Merits of mine that I blush to read. It was the utmost wish of one to be known only by the Title of “Sir Phillip Sidneys Friend.’ I can boast, and point to your own Hand to prove it, that I have been at least Dr. Franklins long Acquaintance. I had not the least Apprehension that any Foreign Honours were design’d me, till I was informd of it by a Letter from your Side of the Water; and received this Transcript of your Friendship. My little Offering of Gratitude will make no perceptable Addition to the Acknowlegdements universally paid you by the whole World of Literature and Science.
I should be exceding glad, Sir, if you could be prevaild on to furnish me with a Catalogue of your Publications. Those of them that I am posses’d of are some of the most Ageeable Ornaments of my Library.
Whatever Title my partial Friends may honour me with, none can more delight me than that of Dear Sir, Your most Affectionate Friend, and obliged, humble Servant.
The Young Gentleman who brings you this, Mr. Edward Church is a Son of one of my Deacons. He has had a liberal Education in our College, but now visits London on Affairs of Merchandize. He will be pleased to see the Doctor he has read so much of.
Shall I ask the Favour of You to forward the enclosed to Aberdeen with as little Expense as may be.
I have just been reading a beautiful Letter of yours, writen Feb. 22. 1756, on the Death of your Brother, which is handed about among us in Manuscript Copies. I am charmed with the Easy and Gay Light in which you view our leaving this little Earth, as Birth among [other?] Immortals: and as setting out on a Party of Pleasure a little before our Friends are ready. The Superstition with which we size and preserve little accidental Touches of your Pen, puts one in mind of the Care of the Virtuosi to collect the Jugs and Galipots with the Paintings of Raphael.
To the Honnourable Dr. Benjamin Franklin, London.


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from Peter Collinson, [1765–1768]
From: Collinson, Peter
To: Franklin, Benjamin

[1765–1768]
Peter Collinson is much obliged for his Dear Frinds Calling Yesterday—Shall be glad to See Him to Dine with Mee next Thursday Two Clock and then go afterwards to Crane Court.
I am Engaged to Dine att Your End of the Town to Day Being called Sunday in Hast.

Addressed: To / Benm. Franklin Esqr / these


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from Grey Cooper, [1765–1775]
From: Cooper, Sir Grey
To: Franklin, Benjamin

[1765–1775]
Mr. Cooper presents his Compliments to Dr. Franklin and returns him many thanks for the honor of his obliging Enquiries.

Addressed: Dr. Frankln’s


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from Thomas Cumming, [1765–1774]
From: Cumming, Thomas
To: Franklin, Benjamin

Surry Street Monday Morn. [1765–1774]
T. Cumming presents his best respects to his worthy friend Doctor Franklin, and begs the favour of his company to eat a bit of venison (from Brislay park) at three o’Clock, with their Friend John Wright at C’s house.

Addressed: To / Doctor Franklin / Craven Street.


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from William Denny, [1765]
From: Denny, William
To: Franklin, Benjamin

Fri. Afternoon [1765]Mr. Paterson’s Bury Street
Col. Denny presents his compliments to Dr. Franklin, and should be glad to have the pleasure of dining with him at a tavern; for being in lodgings he cannot ask the favour of his company at home. If it is agreeable, will bespeak a dinner at the Star and Garter, Pall Mall, at a crown a head to be ready at four o’clock. Please to name sunday, monday, or tuesday for our meeting, I being obliged to go out of town the middle of the week.

Addressed: To / Dr Franklin / at Mrs Stevenson’s / in Craven Street / The Strand


Title: Mr. and Mrs. [Samuel?] Mead to Margaret Stevenson and Benjamin Franklin, [1765–1775]
From: Mead, Samuel,Mead, Mrs. Samuel
To: Stevenson, Margaret,Franklin, Benjamin

Fryday noon. [1765–1775]
Mr. and Mrs. Mead’s Compliments to Mrs. Stephinson, and Doctor Franklin, and are sorry the day the Doctor was at leisure to have done them the favour of a Visit, did not fall out, to have accepted it; They hope the first convenient time the Doctor hath, he will; and that Mrs. Stephenson will be so good to bring the young Gentleman she mentioned! Mr. and Mrs. Mead will be at home any day, as they shall be every day!

Addressed: For / Doctor Franklin / Craven Street


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from [Henry] Potts, [1765–1767]
From: Potts, Henry
To: Franklin, Benjamin

Wednesday Evening [1765–1767]
Mr. Potts presents his Compliments to Mr. Francklin, will be glad of the favor of his Company tomorrow to eat part of a Haunch of Vension. An Answer is desired. At four oClock.

Addressed: To / Benjamin Francklin Esqr. / In Craven Street / Strand


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from Thomas Pownall, [1765–1775]
From: Pownall, Thomas
To: Franklin, Benjamin

New Portugall St. Saturday Morning [1765–1775]
Govr. Pownall presents his Compliments to Mr. Franklin and shou’d be very glad to the favour of his company to Dinner to Day. If he is engaged Govr. Pownall shou’d be very glad to see him any Part of this Evening if not otherwise engaged.
[Memo in Franklin’s hand:] Forts. and Indian Expenses. Ministers make an impossible Act and run mad that it will not execute.


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from Thomas Pownall, [1765–1775]
From: Pownall, Thomas
To: Franklin, Benjamin

Dear Sir,
Tuesday Morning. [1765–1775]
If you have nothing better to do will you be so good to call on me this Morning and take a Family Dinner with us. I would call on you but having the symptoms of a great Minister strong upon by name the Gout I am not able to walk. I wish much to see you. Your friend and Servant
T Pownall

Addressed: To / B Franklin Esqr / &c


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from Thomas Pownall, [1765–1775]
From: Pownall, Thomas
To: Franklin, Benjamin

[1765–1775]
Govr. Pownall presents his Compliments to Dr. Franklin finds he shall necessarily be detained at home here to too late an hour for breakfasting with Dr. Franklin. But will if not inconvenient call upon him about eleven.

Addressed: Dr Franklin / at Mrs Stevenson’s / Craven Street/ Strand


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from Samuel Salt, [1765]
From: Salt, Samuel
To: Franklin, Benjamin

Sir
[1765]
Your’s received was glad to hear of your Safe Arivall to England. As your Stay will be for Some time hope youll take a Tower in this Country and Shall be proud to See you at Bir[ming]ham but Should with a grate dale more Plesure had I not Lost the best of friends the Dearest Companion your Relation my wife who Departed this Life the 26 of January 1764. I do not Dought but for a better after a Long and Severe Illness for a bove 14 months with a Ullser in her Mouth. Theer is only John laft of Eight and he the Eldest. I was glad to hear you Safe. Mrs. Franklin and your Son and Doughter well and hope God will Continue them So, when you can Agreeable Communicate this to Mrs. Franklin with mine and Doughters Best Repects to her and familey hope you will and had you prevailed on her to have come to England. Should have Been proud to have seen her In person. I hope this will find you well as it Leavs me and my Doughter and both Joyne in wishing you the Continuance of your helth is the wish of your most Affectinate Kinsman
Samll Salt

Addressed: To / Benjm: Franklin Esqr. / Craven street / London


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from William and Margaret Strahan, [1765–1775]
From: Strahan, William,Strahan, Margaret
To: Franklin, Benjamin

Sunday noon [1765–1775]
Mr. and Mrs. Strahan present their Compliments to Dr. Franklin and the Ladies, and conceiving it may be more agreeable and convenient for them, will not dine till three o’Clock to day.

Addressed: To / Dr. Franklin / or / Mrs. Stevenson


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from Thomas Whately, [1765]
From: Whately, Thomas
To: Franklin, Benjamin

Parliamt. Street Tuesday night [1765]
Mr. Whately presents his Compliments to Mr. Franklyn and will be much obliged to him, if he will do him the favor to call upon him at the Treasury tomorrow morning between twelve and one OClock.

Addressed: To / —— Franklyn Esqr. / Craven Street / T Whately


Title: The Mother Country. A Song, [1765–1772?]
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To:

This song occupies one side of a single sheet, at the bottom of which Jared Sparks wrote “(Franklin’s hand-writing) J. S.” The present editors agree with his identification. Nothing has been found to indicate whether Franklin composed these verses himself or merely copied them from another source because they amused and pleased him. They probably date from the earlier years of the disputes between the colonies and the British government; “her Man,” mentioned in the fourth stanza, might be George Grenville of Stamp Act fame; Charles Townshend, father of the hated duties of 1767; or the Earl of Hillsborough, secretary of state for the colonies and president of the Board of Trade, 1768–72, whose policies caused him to be greatly disliked in America. Although neither Sparks nor later editors have included these verses in their editions of Franklin’s writings, they are printed here because, regardless of authorship, they reflect the mixed feelings of exasperation and affection with which he regarded the “Mother Country” during these years.

[1765–1772?]
The Mother Country. A Song.

We have an old Mother that peevish is grown,
She snubs us like Children that scarce walk alone;
She forgets we’re grown up and have Sense of our own;

Which nobody can deny, deny,
Which no body can deny.

If we don’t obey Orders, whatever the Case;
She frowns, and she chides, and she loses all Patience, and sometimes she hits us a Slap in the Face,

Which nobody can deny, &c.

Her Orders so odd are, we often suspect
That Age has impaired her sound Intellect:
But still an old Mother should have due Respect,

Which nobody can deny, &c.

Let’s bear with her Humours as well as we can:
But why should we bear the Abuse of her Man?
When Servants make Mischief, they earn the Rattan,

Which nobody should deny, &c.

Know too, ye bad Neighbours, who aim to divide
The Sons from the Mother, that still she’s our Pride;
And if ye attack her we’re all of her side,

Which nobody can deny, &c.

We’ll join in her Lawsuits, to baffle all those,
Who, to get what she has, will be often her Foes:
For we know it must all be our own, when she goes,

Which nobody can deny, deny,
Which nobody can deny.


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from Thomas Hutchinson, 1 January 1766
From:
To:

Dear Sir
Boston Jan. 1. 1766
Upon a review of my last letter from you I find that you asked my opinion upon an application to Parliament for repres[entation] from the colonies and that I omitted taking notice of your desire in my answer.
When the scheme of a stamp duty was first known in the colonies the general voice was that it would deprive them of the liberties of eng[lish] men unless they should have repres[entation] in Parliament, as soon as a suspicion arose that possibly representation might be admitted it was as generally agreed that a representation would be of no service. I find the committees of the colonies were all of that mind at New York. Our great incendiary who when it was first talked of became an advocate for it and has often hinted it in his inflammatory Pieces is now silent because he finds the voice of the People against it.
We shall never be easy again until the relation between the parent state and its colonies is ascertained. Some few imprudent writers have represented this relation to be such as to make no great distinction between english and french colonists whilst the general run of writers have encouraged an independence or at best an imperium in imperio and these latter, such is our state, it is not safe to contradict.
We have a calm at present, the colonies in general having determined that business shall go on as if the act of Parl[iament] had not Passed. I held out in the Probate court until I was assured further violence was just at hand. I could not comply and thought it a favour that I was allowed to quit my Post without being obliged at the same time to quit the continent. The governor by the act was restrained from appointing a successor for a longer term than 12 months but it is very doubtful whether ever I shall be able to reassume it and if the Place of Chief Justice had any emoluments in proportion to the importance of it, and to the time and labour which it requires I should not desire it. I am told business goes on in the courts of admiralty as well as the common law courts and I suppose I am the only instance of non compliance. What will be the next advance is uncertain but it seems impossible we should long remain quiet &c.
Doctor Franklin.


Title: “Pacificus Secundus”: Reply to “Pacificus,” 2 January 1766
From:
To:

Franklin’s contributions to the newspaper debate in England that followed the passage of the Stamp Act and the emergence of colonial opposition in 1765 continued into the early weeks of 1766. The problem of identifying his contributions and the grounds for attributing particular writings to him have been described in the last volume of this edition, pp. 243–4, and that explanation need not be repeated here, except to acknowledge once more the debt the present editors owe to the earlier studies of the subject made by Verner W. Crane. In reprinting in this volume the newspaper contributions of 1766 that can be certainly or probably attributed to Franklin, only the specific evidence for each particular piece will be cited in its annotation.
As the first paragraph of this one of two initial contributions of the new year makes clear, the Public Advertiser of Dec. 27, 1765, had published a letter signed “Pacificus” that advocated the use of military force to reduce the colonists to obedience. This satirical reply, signed “Pacificus Secundus,” printed in the Public Advertiser, Jan. 2, 1766, was reprinted in Goddard’s Pennsylvania Chronicle, and Universal Advertiser, Feb. 16–23, 1767, as the first of two pieces in the latter issue specifically attributed to Franklin. An undated memorandum attributing to him authorship of twenty-one pieces reprinted in the Chronicle, 1767–69, appears to be in the hand of William Franklin, not in that of his father as stated above, XII, 406. With regard to many of these pieces the authorship is beyond question; as to the others it seems probable that William based his listings on some similar memorandum drawn up by his father or on some other direct information from him. This letter and the one from the Gazetteer signed “Homespun,” which immediately followed this piece in the Chronicle as it does here, both fall into the second category.

Sir,
[January 2, 1766]
Pacificus in your Paper of Friday last, tells us, that the inhabitants of New-England “are descended from the Stiff-Rumps in Oliver’s Time;” and he accounts for their being “so tenacious of what they call their Rights and Liberties;” from the independent Principles handed down to them by their Forefathers, and that Spirit of Contradiction, which, he says, “is the distinguishing Characteristic of Fanaticism.” But it seems the Inhabitants of Virginia and Maryland, who are descended from the Royalists of the Church of England, driven hence by those very Oliverian Stiff-Rumps, and never tinctured with Fanaticism, are, in the present Case, as stiff-rump’d as the others, and even led the Way in asserting what “they call their Rights.” So that this Hypothesis of Fanaticism appears insufficient to account for the Opposition universally given to the Stamp-Act in America; and I fancy the Gentleman thought so himself, as he mends it a little after, by lumping all the Americans under the general Character of “House-breakers and Felons.”
Supposing them such, his Proposal of “vacating all their Charters, taking away the Power of their Assemblies, and sending an armed Force among them, to reduce them all to a military Government, in which the Order of the commanding Officer is to be their Law,” will certainly be a very justifiable Measure. I have only some Doubts as to the Expediency of it, and the Facility of carrying it into Execution. For I apprehend ’tis not unlikely they may set their Rumps more stiffly against this Method of Government, than ever they did against that by Act of Parliament: But, on second Thoughts, I conceive it may possibly do very well: For though there should be, as ’tis said there are, at least 250,000 fighting Men among them, many of whom have lately seen Service; yet, as one Englishman is to be sure as good as five Americans, I suppose it will not require Armies of above 50,000 Men in the whole, sent over to the different Parts of that extensive Continent, for reducing them; and that a three or four Year’s Civil War, at perhaps a less Expence than ten or twelve Millions a Year, Transports and Carriages included, will be sufficient to compleat Pacificus’s Pacification, notwithstanding any Disturbance our restless Enemies in Europe might think fit to give us while engaged in this necessary Work. I mention three or four Years only; for I can never believe the Americans will be able to spin it out to seventy, as the Hollanders did the War for their Liberties against Spain, how much soever it may be found the Interest of our own numerous Commissaries, Contractors, and Officers afraid of Half Pay, to continue and protract it.
It may be objected, that by ruining the Colonies, killing one half the People, and driving the rest over the Mountains, we may deprive ourselves of their Custom for our Manufactures: But a Moment’s Consideration will satisfy us, that since we have lost so much of our European Trade, it can only be the Demand in America that keeps up, and has of late so greatly enhanced the Price of those Manufactures, and therefore a Stop put to that Demand will be an Advantage to us all, as we may thereafter buy our own Goods cheaper for our own Use at home. I can think of but one Objection more, which is, that Multitudes of our Poor may starve for Want of Employment. But our wise Laws have provided a Remedy for that. The Rich are to maintain them. I am, Sir, Your humble Servant,
Pacificus Secundus.


Title: “F.B.”: On the Paving of Chancery Lane, 4 January 1766
From:
To:

While there is no certainty that Franklin wrote this squib, the editors agree with Verner W. Crane (Letters to the Press, pp. 44–5) that “the probability . . . is strong enough to justify its inclusion” among his writings. The style and lightness of touch are characteristic; his interest in street paving appears several times in his other writings; and the signature “F.B.,” reversing his own initials, is found also in four of his acknowledged pieces of this period; above, XII, 406–7, 411–13; and below, pp. 38–9, 182–4.
Chancery Lane, familiar haunt today of students of English and Anglo-American history as the site of the Public Record Office, runs from Fleet Street to Holborn. Originally called New Street, its name was changed to Chancery Lane after Edward III assigned the earlier House of Converts as the seat of the master of the rolls. This official, formerly only a custodian of records, gradually assumed a jurisdiction in the Court of Chancery next to that of the lord chancellor himself and heard cases in equity in Rolls Chapel or the court in Rolls Yard. For generations the street was notorious for its miry and malodorous condition, having no sewer arrangements until well into the seventeenth century. The Paving Act of 1765 (5 Geo. III, cap. 50) authorized the inhabitants of any square, street, or place to meet and agree to raise funds for its paving. The difficulties and delays attending procedure in the Court of Chancery, as notorious as the condition of the street in earlier times, continued until long after Franklin’s time; in 1853 Charles Dickens brought them vividly to the attention of readers on both sides of the Atlantic through his novel Bleak House.

  [January 4, 1766]
  To the Printer.

By an advertisement in your paper of Wednesday last, I find, “the inhabitants of Chancery-lane are desired to meet at the Crown and Rolls, to consider about new paving the said street.” I hope and pray they may not agree to it. Chancery lane is in every respect so like a Chancery suit; it is so very long a lane, so subject to obstructions and delays, one is so unwilling to enter into it, so uneasy and unsafe all the while one is going through it, and so glad to get out of it, that the very reflection on this similarity has often, to my great advantage, deterred me from law, and inclined me rather to end a dispute by arbitration. I therefore wish to see the lane continued in its present state (even after all the rest of the city shall be new paved) as a standing memento that may be beneficial to my fellow citizens.
F.B.


Title: “N.N.”: On the Tenure of the Manor of East Greenwich, 6 January 1766
From:
To:

This letter was the first of two that Goddard reprinted in the Pennsylvania Chronicle, March 2–9, 1767, the authorship of which William Franklin later also attributed to his father. It is part of his newspaper controversy with “Vindex Patriae” and the second in the series that he signed “N.N.” His opponent’s first letter, in the Gazetteer of Dec. 23, 1765, had stated that the Connecticut charter of 1662 had made that colony a part of England by a legal fiction, and its people constructively natives of England and hence represented in Parliament as all England was. Franklin replied briefly to this argument in his letter in the Gazetteer of December 28 (above, XII, 414–15), and “Vindex Patriae” responded with a long letter in the issue of January 3, a large part of which he devoted to this “virtual representation” of the colonists in Parliament. The New England charters, he pointed out, provided that the grantees should hold their lands “as of his Majesty’s manor of East Greenwich in the county of Kent,” and by accepting these charters the colonists had solemnly accepted “the fiction in our law, that New England lies within England.” The writer held, in effect, that the New Englanders were virtually represented in the House of Commons by the members from the county of Kent. The present letter is Franklin’s answer to the letter of January 3, and especially to its argument about the manor of East Greenwich.
Twentieth-century scholars have established beyond question that the references to East Greenwich in many of the colonial charters had nothing whatever to do with representation in Parliament, virtual or otherwise. These clauses related specifically and solely to matters of land tenure. The underlying theory of English land law was that the King was the ultimate and paramount lord of all the soil in the terra regis and that all other individuals held their lands from him, either directly, or indirectly through a chain of tenurial relationships. When the King made direct grants of land lying outside the physical boundaries of the realm of England, as in Ireland or America, that land was treated as belonging constructively to one of the existing royal manors or other properties. The Connecticut charter, and most of the others for the colonies that still existed as political entities in the 1760s, specified for this purpose the royal manor of East Greenwich, and provided that the grantees should hold their land “in free and common soccage,” which was the freest and least burdensome of all the tenures known to the ancient land law.

  Jan. 6, 1766.To the Printer
I did not think to have given you any farther trouble, having already exprest my sentiments pretty fully, on the impropriety and imprudence of angry reflections on the Americans in the public papers, as more than half the trade of this country is with them; and that trade depends greatly on the regard they have for us, and in consequence for our fashions and fineries, which are by no means necessary to their subsistence; the Northern Colonies having among themselves the natural means of furnishing, by a little additional industry, every convenience and ornament of life; and to that industry I apprehended a resentment of harsh and contemptuous treatment might naturally provoke them.
But I cannot take leave of my antagonist Vindex Patriae, without a few remarks on his letter of Friday last. All the mad proceedings of the mobs in America, however disapproved of by the sober and prudent part of the inhabitants, are charged to the account of the country in general, and the people are all involved in one common accusation. He remembers that your papers have informed us of the riots at Boston, but forgets that they likewise informed us, some of the rioters were apprehended and imprisoned, in order to be brought to justice; and that the body of the people detested these violences. It is true, they universally deem the stamp act an infringement of their rights, but then their assemblies have taken no violent measures to oppose it; they have only entered into resolutions among themselves, declaring their sense of these rights; and joined, as we are well assured, in dutiful petitions to the King and Parliament here, that the act may be repealed, and those rights preserved to them. Can more be expected from any subjects, how loyal soever, that think themselves aggrieved? Is it right to abuse all England as rebellious, because it has sometimes mobs of weavers, coal-diggers, &c.? Candour then should distinguish in this case fairly, between the proceedings of the assemblies there, and the actions of mobs; the latter are certainly wrong, the former may be so; but if they are, it is a mistaken judgment only of what they think their right; of this mistake they may possibly be convinced by reason; but I still doubt the argument of your correspondent, proving, or attempting to prove, “that they are represented in parliament, because the manor of East Greenwich in Kent is represented there, and they all live in that manor;” will hardly appear so intelligible, so clear, so satisfactory, and so convincing to the Americans, as it seems it does to himself.
I own it does not appear so to me; and that my plain understanding, unaccustomed to the subtile refinements of law, cannot easily conceive, that in the King’s grants of territory in America to the colonists, the words, “to be holden of us, our heirs and successors, as of the manor of East Greenwich, in our county of Kent, in free and common soccage, and not in capite, or by knight’s service;” do truly imply, that the lands so granted really lie in East Greenwich. I should rather have thought those words meant only to express, that the tenure should be of the same kind with that of the manor of East Greenwich. The countries held by this tenure, Sir, are perhaps as big as all Europe; and East Greenwich, in the county of Kent, in England, is at most but of a few miles circumference. I have read that the whale swallowed Jonah; and as that is in Holy Writ, to be sure I ought to believe it. But if I were told, that, in fact, it was Jonah that swallowed the whale, I fancy I could myself as easily swallow the whale as the story.
If “New England lies within England,” as your correspondent would have the New England men believe, and particularly in the manor of East Greenwich, a few questions must thence naturally arise, to which his law knowledge will probably furnish ready answers. As, What have these inhabitants of East Greenwich in Kent done, that they, more than any other inhabitants of Kent, should be curbed in their manufactures and commerce? Why are they restrained in making hats of their own beaver, nail rods and steel of their own iron, and cloth of their own wool? Why may not ships from East Greenwich carry its commodities to any part of Europe, and thence bring back others in exchange, with the same freedom that ships may go from any other part of Kent, or of England? And since it is agreed, that by our constitution, the King can raise no money in England but by act of parliament, how has it come to pass, that in consequence of requisitions from the crown, large sums have been raised for its service on these inhabitants of East Greenwich, in the county of Kent, unauthorized by any such act, particularly between three and four millions during the last war? And if this money was illegally taken, whether it ought not to be refunded, and the ministers impeached that advised the measure? These seem questions of some importance, and may possibly admit of satisfactory answers; but to that end I doubt it will be found necessary, that these new inhabitants of East Greenwich in Kent, planted there by your correspondent, should be all sent back, and replaced in their native America.
In considering of these questions, perhaps, it may be of use to recollect; that the colonies were planted in times when the powers of parliament were not supposed so extensive, as they are become since the Revolution: That they were planted in lands and countries w[h]ere the parliament had not then the least jurisdiction: That, excepting the yet infant colonies of Georgia and Nova Scotia, none of them were settled at the expence of any money granted by parliament: That the people went from hence by permission from the crown, purchased or conquered the territory, at the expence of their own private treasure and blood: That these territories thus became new dominions of the crown, settled under royal charters, that formed their several governments and constitutions, on which the parliament was never consulted; or had the least participation. The people there have had, from the beginning, like Ireland, their separate parliaments, called modestly assemblies: by these chiefly our Kings have governed them. How far, and in what particulars, they are subordinate and subject to the British parliament; or whether they may not, if the King pleases, be governed as domains of the crown, without that parliament, are points newly agitated, never yet, but probably soon will be, thoroughly considered and settled. Different opinions are now entertained concerning them; and till such settlement is made by due authority, it is not criminal to think differently. Therefore, I wish the American opinion may, in the mean time, be treated with less acrimony.
As to Vindex’s accusation of the Americans, “that they run into their country divers commodities of the manufacture of France, to the ruin of Great Britain;” I fancy, they will be apt to answer, Look at home; and perhaps it will be found, that in this ruinous trade, the rest of the people of Kent, are not a whit behind-hand with the inhabitants of East Greenwich.
N. N.


Title: From Benjamin Franklin to ———, 6 January 1766
From:
To:

Sir
[January 6, 1766]
I have attentively perus’d the Paper you sent me, and am of Opinion that the Measure it proposes of an Union with the Colonies is a wise one: but I doubt it will hardly be thought so here, ’till tis too late to attempt it. The Time has been when the Colonies, would have esteem’d it a great Advantage as well as Honour to them to be permitted to send Members to Parliament; and would have ask’d for that Privilege if they could have had the least Hopes of obtaining it. The Time is now come when they are indifferent about it, and will probably not ask it; though they might accept it if offered them; and the Time will come when they will certainly refuse it, But if such an Union were now establish’d, which methinks it highly imports this Country to establish, it would probably subsist as long as Britain shall continue a Nation. This People, however, is too proud, and too much despises the Americans, to bear the Thought of admitting them to such an equitable Participation in the Government of the whole. Then the next best thing seems to be, leaving them in the quiet Enjoyment of their separate Constitutions, and when Money is wanted for any public Service in which they ought to bear a Part, calling upon them by Requisatorial Letters from the Crown, according to the long establish’d Custom, to grant such Aids as their Loyalty shall dictate and their Abilities permit. The very sensible and benevolent Author of that Paper, seems not to have known that such a constitutional Custom subsists and has always hitherto been practic’d in America, or he would not have express’d himself in this Manner; “Tis evident, beyond a Doubt to the intelligent and impartial that after the very extraordinary Efforts which were effectually made by Great Britain in the late War, to save the Colonists from Destruction, and attended of necessity with an enormous Load of Debts in consequence; that the same Colonists now firmly secured from foreign Enemies, should be somehow induced to contribute some Proportion to wards the Exigencies of State in future.” This looks as if he conceiv’d the War had been carry’d on at the sole Expence of Great Britain, and the Colonies only reap’d the Benefit without hitherto sharing the Burthen, and were therefore now indebted to Britain on that Account. And this is the same kind of Argument that is us’d by those who would fix on the Colonies the heavy Charge of unreasonableness and Ingratitude, which I think your Friend did not intend. Please to acquaint him then, that the Fact is not so; That every Year during the War, Requisitions were made by the Crown on the Colonies, for raising Money and Men that accordingly they made more extraordinary Efforts in proportion to their Abilities than Britain did; that they rais’d, paid and cloath’d for 5 or 6 Years near 25,000 Men besides providing for other Services, as building Forts, equipping Guard Ships, paying Transports, &c. and that this was more than their fair proportion, is not merely an Opinion of mine, but was the Judgment of Government here on full Knowledge of the Facts; for the then Ministry, to make the Burthen more equal, recommended the Case to Parliament, and obtain’d a Reimbursement to the Americans of about a £200,000 Sterling Every Year, which amounted only to about two fifths of their Expence, and great Part of the rest lies still a Load of Debt upon them, heavy Taxes on all their Estates real and personal being laid by Acts of their Assemblies to discharge it, and yet will not discharge it in many Years. While then these Burthens continue; while Britain restrains the Colonies in every Branch of Commerce and Manufactures that she thinks interferes with her own; while she drains the Colonies by her Trade with them of all the Cash they can procure by every Art and Industry in any Part of the World, and thus keeps them always in her Debt: (for they can make no Law to discourage the Importation of your to them ruinous Superfluities, as you do the Superfluities of France; since such a Law would immediately be reported against by your Board of Trade and repeal’d by the Crown.) I say while these Circumstances continue, and while there subsists the establish’d Method of Royal Requisitions, for raising Money on them by their own Assemblies on every proper Occasion, can it be necessary or prudent to distress and vex them by Taxes laid here, in a Parliament wherein they have no Representative, and in a Manner which they look upon to be unconstitutional and subversive of their most valuable Rights; and are they to be thought unreasonable and ungrateful if they oppose such Taxes? Wherewith, they say, shall we show our Loyalty to our gracious King, if our Money is to be given by others without asking our Consent? and if the Parliament has a Right thus to take from us a penny in the Pound, where is the Line drawn that bounds that Right, and what shall hinder their calling whenever they please for the other nineteen shillings and eleven pence? Have we then any thing that we can call our own? ’Tis more than probable that bringing Representatives from the Colonies to sit and act here as Members of Parliament, thus uniting and consolidating your Dominions would in a little time remove these Objections and Difficulties; and make the future Government of the Colonies easy: But till some such thing is done, I apprehend no Taxes laid there by Parliament here, will ever be collected, but such as must be stain’d with Blood. And I am sure the Profit of such Taxes will never answer the Expence of Collecting them; and that the Respect and Affection of the Americans to this Country will in the Struggle be totally lost, perhaps never to be recover’d, and therewith all the Commercial and Political Advantages that might have attended the Continuance of that Respect and that Affection.
In my own private Judgment I think an immediate Repeal of the Stamp Act would be the best Measure for this Country; but a Suspension of it for three Years, the best for that. The Repeal would fill them with Joy and Gratitude reestablish their respect and Veneration for Parliament, restore at once their ancient and natural Love for this Country, and their regard for every thing that comes from it; hence the Trade would be renew’d in all its Branches, they would again indulge in all the expensive Superfluities you supply them with, and their own new assumed home Industry would languish. But the Suspension, tho’ it might continue their Fears and Anxietys, would at the same time keep up their Resolutions of Industry and Frugality, which in two or three years would grow into Habits to their lasting Advantage. However, as the Repeal will probably not be now agreed to [from] what I think a mistaken Opinion, that the Honour and Dignity of Government is better supported by persisting in a wrong Measure once entred into, than by rectifying an Error as soon as it is discover’d; we must allow the next best thing for the Advantage of both Countries is the Suspension. For as to executing the Act by Force, tis Madness, and will be Ruin to the whole.
The rest of your Friend’s Reasonings and Propositions appear to me truly just and judicious. I need therefore only add, that I am as desirous of his Acquaintance [illegible] as he was of my Opinion. I am, with much Esteem Your obliged Friend
B F.

Endorsed: Letter to [name heavily canceled but may be T. Crowley] Jan 6. 1766


Title: “N.N.”: Communicating Massachusetts Documents, 7–9 January 1766
From:
To:

This introductory note to the printer is attributed to Franklin chiefly because its signature, “N.N.,” is one he certainly used for three other letters to the press in the winter of 1765–66 and continued to use from time to time during later years.
With this communication Franklin sent copies of the instructions adopted by the Boston town meeting, Sept. 18, 1765, for the town’s representatives in the Massachusetts General Court, the instructions for a similar purpose adopted by the Braintree town meeting, September 24, and an extract from Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy. The London Chronicle printed the introductory note and the Boston instructions in its issue of January 7–9 and the other two pieces in its issue of January 9–11. The Boston instructions had been printed in Boston Gazette, Sept. 19, 1765, and reprinted in the Pennsylvania Gazette, Oct. 3, 1765. The Braintree instructions had been printed in the Massachusetts Gazette. And Boston News-Letter, Oct. 10, 1765, and reprinted in the Pennsylvania Gazette, Oct. 24, 1765. Franklin may have obtained his texts from the Philadelphia reprints.
The Boston instructions were written by Samuel Adams. Firm in their opposition to the Stamp Act and vigorous in stating the colonial objections to it, they were nevertheless couched in “decent and respectful terms.” They directed the town’s representatives to use their “best endeavours” to see that “the inherent inalienable rights” of the province’s people were “asserted and vindicated,” so that posterity might “never have reason to charge the present times with the guilt of tamely giving them away.” The Braintree instructions, written by John Adams, were to the same effect and showed a similar regard for the opinion of “all future generations,” but they were somewhat more outspoken in their criticism of the act and its effects, and in the people’s resolve “that we never can be slaves.” Both sets of instructions directed the representatives in guarded but emphatic terms to prevent any expenditure of public funds by the governor for the defense of the stamp officers or for the enforcement of the act.

  [January 7–9, 1766]
  To the Printer of the London Chronicle.Sir,

Many People imagine that the opposition given by the Americans to the Stamp act, proceeds merely from a mean disposition, and an unreasonable fondness for their money. Whoever is acquainted with their public conduct in general, and particularly through the last war, must know, that niggardliness is no part of their just character. You have already printed some of the instructions from the people there to their Representatives; but the two following, from two of the principal towns in New England I have not yet seen in your or any other paper here: And I think it would be well to publish them at this time, as the chief objections to that act are fully explained in them. I send you also an extract from Machiavell’s discourses on Livy; as a due consideration of the sentiments it contains, may perhaps on this occasion be of some service. I am, your’s, &c.
N. N.


Title: From Benjamin Franklin to the Pennsylvania Assembly Committee of Correspondence, 11 January 1766
From:
To:

London, January 11, 1766
In Compliance with the Direction in the Committee’s Letter, I have procured, and now send you inclosed, authentic Office Copies of the Representation of the Board of Trade, dated September the Eighth, 1709, upon our Acts of 1705, referred to them, and of the Order of Council, October the Twenty-fourth, 1709, upon that Representation. By these it appears, that our Act for regulating Elections, &c. which includes and confirms the principal Privileges of the Proprietary Charter, was duly laid before the Council, with the other Acts passed the same Session; that they were, on the Twenty-eighth of April, 1709, referred by the Council to the Board of Trade; that that Board reported upon them September the Eighth, proposing six of them as proper to be disallowed, and declaring that they had no Objection to any of the others, of which they give the Titles. Then the Order of Council shews, that no more were repealed by Her Majesty than were proposed for Her Disallowance by the Board of Trade: And this Order being on the Twenty-fourth of October, was within Four Days of the Expiration of the Six Months, after which all stand confirmed that were not before repealed. I suppose these Papers will be quite satisfactory on that Head.


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from Deborah Franklin, 12 January 1766
From:
To:

My Dear Child
Jan. the 12 [1766]
[As it] is verey Cold I did not go ought to day so was a writeing a letter to our Sister Janey in anser to one I had wrote to her sense the deth of her husband I Cante helpe thinking the more trials shee do meet with the more shee shines I pray god to bless and kep her.
So this minit or with in this ower the poste Come in and the packit is arived and I have the pleshuer of a letter from you which never failes of giveing me graite pleshuer I will begin and tell you that Capt. Sparkes and Capt. Hammit arived safe and our friends Came in all in good helth I saw my Miss Grayham [Graeme] next evening as I did Mr. Evens I have not seen Mr. Petters yit as I rely am So much taken up a visiting the sick it was on tusday that Capt. Sparkes arived and on friday night Capt. Roboson and on satterday morning I reseved a letter from you with a note from Mrs. Nelson. I read them bouthe and got a verey desent young man to go down to the vesill for her but Capt. Roboson sente me word he wold bring her up and brakefaste with me So he did. Shee was but poorley but after drink a dish or two of tee I had a fier maid in the chaimber up one pair of stairs and shee wente to bead and got sum Sleep shee was better and I did all in my power to make a Straing plase agreabel to her which I hope I did. The Capt. meet with a good deal of trubel so we did not get the things on shore so soon as I did expeckte but att severel times we did. I will tell you Mr. Evens Sente the pair of shoveles and tonges prodigously [rusted?] but he Cold not helpe it. By Robison I have reseved the boyler with the things menshoned in your letter the painted flore cloathe and the other mater which is verey good the set of Chaney quite whole the tee Pot and salte for which I give you maney thankes and if I live tell your BirthdayI think to fill it with punch and treet sum of your friends the Cambridg [scissors?] you sente I took one as you desined one for me but before thay Come on shore I told Mr. Rhodes of them he semed plesed at hearing of such things and sed sumtimes he had bin put to a lose for wante of a meshuer so on freyday laste he Come to see me I shoud it to him and he was much plesd with it. I maid him a presant of it and I make no doute but you will say I did write. Now I will tell you sum thing of our one [own] buisnes firste a bought that land in Chester Countey I never heard you say aney thing but what you wrote be for you lefte the Cape that I sente to Mr. Parker. He did the busnis but never sed one word to me a bought it nor I never knew aney thing tell one day I had bin to church when I Came home I found a letter on the tabel direckted to me it was from Amos Strutel Smarte and Shorte demanding of me 18 pound intreste money due on that plantashon. I wrote to Mr. Parker a line or two and inclosed his letter to me and took it to the ofis and I had not bin thair more then 2 minites when Strutel Come in. I told him I was quite a Strainger to the a faire but that letter that I had then brought to the ofis was to inquier of Mr. Parker a bought the afair and his [nos?] in it. He was verey shorte with me so, parker thot he shold a told me sum thing a bought it but had let it slip his memerey and took the deades up with him but then sente them down to me and sed the money muste be paid so I wente down and paid him the 18 pounds and I raly think him one of the rudeste men I ever meet with. I have had one or two to hier the plase but then thair Comes sumbody and ses that thay air Roges and will spoyle the plase. I did inquier in whose Congruygash[on] it was in thay tell me in F Allisons and that thair is none but roges all a bout. I paid ten shillins tackes be for but Gorge Read of New casel was to see me I spook to him to see if we Cold get a Chap[?] to sel it to for he ses that he thinkes it in the worste plase in all the Countey. So far on that head now for sumthing which I hope will be more plesing but Mr. Hughes ses he shall write to you a bought it as he Can tell you better then I can but this I have paid to wordes [towards] the land I beleve it is in NovaScosha or sum such plase but to be shorte I have paid 53 pounds to young Wain be fore the Deades is dun but he had borrowed the money of a man that was a going ought of town so you see that I am a raile Land Jober. I tell Salley this is for Grandchildren shee semed verey well plesed att it and thinkes we shall have sume in good time I hope I have dun as you wold have me or as you wold if you had bin at home your selef.
The two Mrs. [Messrs.] Foxcroftes air gon to Virjaney thees three weeks we have not heard from them indead I donte know wather aney poste has bin up sense that time. I shall deliver your mesages as you desier me. Poor Parker has bin verey ill a long time and so has his son his wife has bin oblige to go twise to woodbridg as it was thought Sammey was deying but he Cold not stir with the Goute Shee and Jenkey is thair now. On twelef night Jemey Logan Came to aske Salley to go with him to Burlinton the next day. Shee was gon to spend the evening att Mr. Roses [Ross’s] so I sed shee was of aige shold anser for her selef. Shee sed yis and next morning thay set ought in a Chariot and 4. He Came downe on freyday and left her be hind. I had no letter as shee was a cuming over with him so had not time to write. Our river is froze over. On monday morning laste it was 5 degres Colder then aney time laste winter. I have my poor Chin froste bit with the Cold. I was in hopes that our friend Mrs. Smith wold a got the better of her disorder but I have bin to see her this evening and found her verey ill shee ses shee muste dey. Shee Cante bair aney bodey to speek to her shee is so low sperrited. It is thought bouthe the Mr. Norrises is verey near thair ende. Our nabor Capt. Horrison is dead and poor Henerey Pastick
   *The Porter he was a good father indeed.
was froze to deth and sum other man with him. So far I wrote by Candelite. Mrs. Thomson desiers that I wold give her love to you as doe every bodey that I have seen this day and thay are not a fhew. Remember me to Capt. Orrey and Ladey and Miss. Salley has the sattin. Good old Master Beverag was maid verey happey with that letter from Sir Robort Pringel. The worthey Jentelman ascd me to give him leve to set you down as a Subscriber for his Book and I gave him leve. I hope it was write and he has had one Bound and left for you Smith has given the good man sum trubel a boute it he teles him the revewers will due sum thing to it but I for get what it is so leve it. I sente Gorge to inquier hough your good old man and woman at paster [pasture] did. He ses thay air well and was glad to hear from the Madam Gorge ses thay have not got a Child as he Cold see I had maney things more to say and if I live I will but the Packit Came before ites time and is to go at 12 a clock and it is near one. My love to all the good pepel that I know. Tell Mrs. Emson that it has plesed God to spair her Papey to his famely a littel Longer.I was to see Brother and Sister laste evening. Brother ses he is verey well but I never say aney body but Mr. Kinersly look so thin as he dus. Sister Complains much but look verey well. All our nabors come in one after another to send Love to you. I have not heard one word from aney bodey att Burlinton so Cante tell hough thay due nor wather Mrs. Nelson got up well lets hope shee did. Debey sends her Duty to you Nancy sendes hers and Susanah hers. I am my Dear Child your afeckshonet wife
D Franklin

I did not forget for I hope I have a graitefull harte.
I thanke you for the fine tee Pott for the Carpetes and the verey fine brom. It is verey hansome. For the Salte which is verey excepeabel to me for I like it verey much indeed. For the butyfull Candel stickes and for the Shoefels and tonges which is Cureyous [curious].
D Franklin


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from Joseph Galloway, 13 January 1766
From:
To:

Dear Sir
Philada. Jany. 13. 1765 [1766].
I received your favours of Sept. 26, and Novr. 9th. We are Sensible of the many Obstructions and unavoidable Difficulties which you have met with in proceeding on our Petitions. And from the perfect Confidence we repose in you we have not the least doubt, but that every thing has been done for the Obtaining the Desirable Object, a Royal Government, should it be obtained or not. The Presentation of the Petitions gives us great Pleasure, and we hope the full orders of the Present Assembly to prosecute them to Effect forthwith, will facilitate an Issue upon them, and remove any Difficulties that may remain with your worthy Colleague, tho by his Letters to the Committee of Correspondence as well as to my Self he Seems firmly resolved to unite with you in bringing this Affair to a Speedy Conclusion.
I thank you Sincerely for the Notice you take of the Piece Signed Americanus. Be assured I shall ever esteem your Approbation of my Conduct among the highest Rewards. I have nearly finished a Pamphlet on the Same Subject. Entituled “Political Reflections on the dispute between Great Brittain and her Colonies respecting her Right of Imposing Taxes on them without their Assent.” I shall show it when done to my Good Freind your Son, and not Publish it without his Approbation. Something of this Kind Seems absolutely necessary to allay the Violent Temper of the Americans, which has been so work’d up as to be ready even for Rebellion itself. But the Difficulty will be in getting it Published; The Printers on the Continent having combined together to print every thing inflamatory and nothing that is rational and Cool. By which means every thing that is published is ex parte, the people are Taught to believe the greatest Absurdities, and their Passions are excited to a Degree of Resentment against the Mother Country, beyond all Description.
Our Assembly is now Sitting, and yesterday Ordered to be transcribed a Petition to the Commons for the Repeal of the Law Prohibiting Paper Money from being Lawful Tender in the Colonies. I hope the Decency of it, will recommend it to the Attention of that House in these Violent Times as well as its merits. And I think If the Parliament duly weighs the Effects of granting us the Liberty prayed for, they will not Refuse it. Without Money Labour will be Low, and Manufactures may and must from Necessity be carried on In America which must diminish our Brittish Importations. Let us have Money and we shall never think of Manufacturing or if we do, we shall never be able to perfect it to any Degree. I hope the Petition will be ready to come by this Conveyance.
We impatiently wait for the resolutions of the Brittish Parliament respecting the Stamp Act. For while on one part the Law is prevented from being Executed by the Mobs in the Principal Colonies of America, on the other No Buisiness is transacted in any of the Courts of Justice, which is attended with inexpressible Mischief. A certain Sort of People if I may Judge from all their late Conduct Seem to look on this as a favorable opportunity of establ[ish]ing their Republican Principles, and of throwing of[f] all Connection with their Mother Country. Many of their Publications justify the Thought. Besides I have other Reasons to think, that they are not only forming a Private union Among themselves from one End of the Continent to the other, but endeavouring also to bring into their union, the Quakers and all other Dissenters if possible. But I hope this will be impossible. In Pennsylvania, I am Confident it will. I am, my Dear Friend with Sincerest Wishes for your Happiness your truly Affectionate humble Servant
Jos. Galloway

Addressed: To / Benjamin Franklin Esqr. / Deputy Post Master General / of North America / in / Craven street / London / per Packet
Endorsed: Mr Galloway Jan. 13. 66.