Title: From Benjamin Franklin to William Shirley, 22 May 1755
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To: Shirley, William

Sir,
Philada. May 22. 1755
Mr. Norris not being in Town, your Excellency’s Letter of the 14th Instant per Express, was delivered to me. I immediately conven’d the Committee, and communicated the Contents. In answer, they desire me to acquaint your Excellency with the State of the Provisions they have procured, which is as follows.
They have purchased but 500 Barrels of Pork. It is all of the best Burlington Pork, and not one Barrel among it of any other sort. There is no more of the kind to be bought; so that this Article will fall short 700 Barrels of the Quantity required by your Committee.
They have bought but 250 Barrels of Beef, and can get no more that they would chuse to send. This is all choice Stall-fed Beef, exceeding good, most of it kill’d in this Town and put up on purpose; and the rest carefully examin’d and repack’d here. The Gentlemen of the Committee who purchase the Provisions, are Messrs. John Mifflin, Saml. Smith and Reese Meredith, all long practis’d in the Provision Way, and esteemed thorough Judges; they are of Opinion that no better Beef will or can be brought to the Army from any Country; and as your Excellency’s Request that it may be sold again, and not sent, seems founded on a mistaken Supposition of your Committee, that good Beef is not to be expected from Pensilvania, these Gentlemen will venture their own Credit and that of their Country on this Beef, that it shall prove as good as any from Boston; and they suppose that in such Case, neither your Excellency nor your Committee would desire to have it omitted. They therefore propose to send the said 250 Barrels, and no more. All the Cask, both of the Pork and Beef, are full trimm’d, and in the best Order.
Rum was one of the Articles directed in your Excellency’s Orders given to the Committee here. They had accordingly bought and shipt 50 Hogsheads, before they receiv’d your Committee’s Letter of the 14th. April, in which there is no mention of Rum. They have Advice that the Rum is arriv’d in York; so much less therefore need be sent from Boston; and the Committee conceive that the Army will not be discontented at finding it good Barbadoes, instead of New England.
A Thousand Pounds worth of Pease are also purchased in Albany by Order of the Committee; and they have shipt and sent forward 140 Barrels of Meal and Flour. 600 Barrels more of Flour are purchased and actually in Store ready to send; to which they will add 50 Tierces of Rice and the Remainder of the Sum in Bread of the kind required. If your Committee should think that Quantity of Bread too great (for it will become greater by the Diminution of the Pork) they may accomodate the New York Forces with some of it in Exchange for Pork: Connecticut Pork being plenty at New York, and Bread wanting.
The Committee will send all to the Persons recommended; but doubt they shall not be able to get the Whole delivered at Albany in time, without re-shipping some at New York; our Vessels of any Burthen drawing too much Water for that River. They will however comply with this Direction as far as they can.
This being the exact State of the Provisions sent and to be sent from hence, your Committee can now regulate their remaining Purchases accordingly.

I did not reach home ’till the 12th Instant, from the Journey, in which I had the Honour to accompany your Excellency as far as Annapolis. In my way I have had the good Fortune to do an acceptable Piece of Service to the Forces under General Braddock. I found them stuck fast, and unable to move for want of Horses and Carriages; all their Dependencies for those Articles having failed. They are now supply’d with both as well as with 6000 Bushels of Oats and Indian Corn, which were much wanted but scarce expected. Your Excellency, I find by the Papers, got well home about the same time: I do not expect more Pleasure from any News, till I hear of your safe Return after a successful Campaign at Niagara.
With the greatest Respect and Esteem, I have the Honour to be Your Excellency’s most obedient and most humble Servant

B Franklin
Governr Shirley


Title: Advertisement for Wagons, 22 May 1755
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To:

Forty-One Waggons are immediately wanted, to carry each a Load of Oats and Indian-Corn from Philadelphia to Wills’s Creek, for which they are to be paid at their Return Twelve Pounds each Waggon. Protections and Passes will be given the Waggoners by Authority of the General, to prevent their being impressed, or detained after Delivery of their Loads. They are to set out together on Thursday the 29th Instant. Apply to Benjamin Franklin, in Philadelphia.
Note, Several Neighbours may conveniently join in fitting out a Waggon, as was lately done in the Back Counties. If the Waggons cannot thus be obtained, there must be an Impress.


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from Sir Peter Halkett, 23 May 1755
From: Halkett, Sir Peter
To: Franklin, Benjamin

May 23, 1755
Two sentences from this unlocated letter are quoted in the Pennsylvania Assembly’s reply, Sept. 29, 1755, to Governor Morris’ charge, September 24, that the Assembly had done little to support Braddock’s expedition (see below, p. 209).


Title: From Benjamin Franklin to Edward Shippen, 24 May 1755
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To: Shippen, Edward

In addition to supplying wagons Franklin contributed to Braddock’s campaign by helping to organize the construction of a road between army headquarters at Fort Cumberland on Wills Creek and the Pennsylvania back settlements. In March 1755 at Sir John St. Clair’s behest, Governor Morris appointed James Burd and four other commissioners to survey a route westward from Shippensburg to the head of the Youghiogheny. The survey was made, and by May 6 Burd and a handful of men had begun the heavy work of clearing a road. By May. 17, 60 or 70 men were at work, but they built only a mile a day, and Cumberland County could provide no more laborers. On May 20, at an important conference at Aughwick attended by Secretary Richard Peters, who was there to inspect the frontier defenses (see above, p. 49), it was agreed to ask General Braddock to release some of his pioneers, or to ask the governor to advertise for workmen, or, “at worst,” to impress laborers. Morris had an advertisement published in English and German, in Philadelphia and elsewhere, “inviting labourers to go upon that Service, who are to enter themselves with Mr. Shippen at Lancaster, and then proceed to the road.” No copy of this advertisement has been found. It produced results. Franklin assured the volunteers they would be paid fairly and not be enlisted, and he gave them passes to Shippen at Lancaster. Burd spoke of the “high Spirits” of his men, who “seemed willing to tear the Mountains to pieces.” On May 26 Governor Morris informed Braddock’s aide there were 200 men at work — the actual number was considerably smaller — and assured him they would reach the Forks of Youghiogheny in a month “at the farthest.” Not until May 29, however, did a committee of the Assembly provide for paying the men.

Sir
Philada. May 24. 1755
By the Governor’s Direction I issued the inclos’d Advertisement. The Bearers, John Laverty, and Charles Coleman, have agreed to go and work on the Road accordingly. You will be pleased to give them Directions how they are to proceed. My Compliments to your good Lady and Family. I am, very respectfully, Sir, Your most obedient Servant
B Franklin
Edwd. Shippen Esqr.
 Addressed: To / Edward Shippen Esqr / Lancaster
Endorsed: B Franklins Letter Philada. 24 May 1755. about the road cutters


Title: To——, 29 May 1755
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To: Peters, Secretary

Sir
Philada. May 29. 1755
The Committee hereby acquaint you that the House have resolved to defray the Expence of the cutting of the Roads requird, so that you may go on with that Affair freely. If there should come any orders to you from the Generall for wheat, the Committee desire you would send him any quantity he desires of that which was bought for the Publick above the quantity of 14,000 bushels at first order’d for the Virginia flour, or more in case that should not be sufficient. They also desire that care may be taken that the men be kept close to their work, and do faithfull days works or the Expence will be unreasonably great. They are willing to pay an Active diligent overseer what may be reasonable for such Service.
I am [in] behalf of the Committee, Sir Your Humble servant
B Franklin
Please to communicate this to Joseph Armstrong Esqr.

[On the back]
At a meeting of the Committee and other members of Assembly at the state House in Philadelphia the 29. 5mo 1755
Present Isaac Norris, Evan Morgan, Jos. Stretch, Benja. Franklin, Wm. Callender, Jas. Pemberton.
James Pemberton reports he deliver’d to the Governor the letter in answer to his to the Comittee pursuant to their directions, to which the Governor was pleas’d to reply he thank’d the Gentlemen for their good Intentions, and that he would Inform Generall Braddock thereof but did not signify he expected any Service from them and demanded the Generall’s letter to him which was accordingly deliver’d.
Benja. Franklin now comunicated a letter he had received from Wm. Shirlley secretary to Generall Braddock requesting a Supply of sixty waggens to be hir’d on his account and sent up to the camp with all possible dispatch laden with Oats and Indian Corn. Whereupon it was agreed to Comply with the Generall’s demand, and B. Franklin desird to publish Advertisements for the hire of the quantity of waggens with four horses and a driver Each at the rate of 15s. per day to carry a load of Oats and Indian Corn to the Camp at Wills’s Creek and to appoint the 9th: of next month to sett off from Philadelphia and James Pemberton to secure a quantity of Oats and Indian Corn sufficient to lade them.

The following letter from the Governor was also read viz. here Insert it.
On considering which it was agreed to supply the Governor with one hundred dollars to be sent to Ed: Shippen to advance to Labourers to be Employd in cutting the New Road towards the Ohio and Jas. Pemberton is desird to gett that sum from C. Norris and pay it to the Governor for that purpose.


Title: From Benjamin Franklin to Edward Shippen, 2 June 1755
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To: Shippen, Edward

Sir
Philada. June 2. 1755.
I am sorry it so happened that you had no Money put into your Hands for the Affair of the New Road; for Laverty and Coleman’s Return for want of a little Assistance, will, I am afraid, discourage many that intended to go. The Committee, on Sight of your Letter to the Governor, ordered 100 Dollars into his Hands to be sent to you, which I hope you have received. I am, with great Esteem and Respect, Sir, Your most humble Servant
B Franklin
 Endorsed: B. Franklins Letter Philada. 2d June 1755 about the road Cutters.


Title: From Benjamin Franklin to Daniel Fisher, [4 June 1755]
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To: Fisher, Daniel

[June 4, 1755]
Mr. Franklin’s compliments to Mr. Fisher and desires the favor of his Company to drink Tea at 5 o’clock this afternoon.


Title: From Benjamin Franklin to Charles Norris, 12 June 1755
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To: Norris, Charles

Sir
Thursday morning [June 12, 1755]

      June 12th 1755

      pd
      £100.
      0.
      0
      Cash

      50.
      0.
      0
      Notes

      £150.
      0.
      0.

Please to send me One hundred and Fifty Pounds on Account of the Committee. It should be Paper Money, as it is to go up to Mr. James Wright: and Paper will be the best Carriage. Some of it may be in the new Bills. The Post goes in an Hour. Let Jemmy bring it, if you please, as my Niece can hardly stay the Counting.

Yours affectionately
B. Franklin
To Mr. Charles Norris
 Receipted: Philada June 12. 1755 Rec’d of Charles Norris One hundred and fifty pounds per me
B. Franklin
 Endorsed: Benjn: Franklins Ordr & Rect £150 paid June. 12th. 1755 paid. Entered in the accots. £5000. in Marble covered book.


Title: Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, 16 June 1755
From: Pennsylvania Assembly
To:

Calling on the neighboring colonies for supplies, General Braddock, who was about to begin his march westward from Fort Cumberland, asked Governor Morris on May 24, 1755, to forward “with all Diligence” Pennsylvania’s share of the artillery, ammunition, stores, and provisions he would need at Fort Duquesne, when he captured it, or for another “Place of Defence,” if the French should destroy Duquesne first. Morris accordingly summoned his Assembly into special session on June 13, and the next day reported the substance of Braddock’s appeal but, mindful of his experience with Sir Thomas Robinson’s letters in the spring (see above, V, 527–31), did not lay the text before them. Specifically Morris asked for a grant for the needed supplies, with a guard to convoy them; for measures to protect the back country, “by establishing a Militia, or otherwise,” from French and Indian raids behind the army; and for a law regulating the wages and hire of drivers, horses, and wagons, and the price of provisions, “that his Majesty’s Service may be carried on at a reasonable and moderate Expence, and private Men not left at Liberty to impose upon the Publick.” The House drafted an appropriation bill and one regulating horse and carriage hire, but over the question of Braddock’s letter they immediately began an argument. They asked to see it, since Morris had cited its contents as the reason for calling them together; he, with the Council’s approval, in turn demanded prior assurance that it would not be published, though he did say he would show it to any committee the House might name for the purpose. The Assembly appointed Evan Morgan, Franklin, William Callender, and James Burnside to draft the Assembly’s answer, which was sent to the governor on June 16, and is printed here.
Morris replied on June 21. After asserting his right as governor (which the Assembly had not questioned) to call them into session whenever he thought proper and to make his speeches or messages sufficient grounds for action, he declared that Braddock’s letter contained “several Matters I thought improper to publish to the World,” explained why he would not trust the House with it without prior assurances — “a Promise of the House, signified by a Message, either verbal or otherwise, is what I expect — and whenever you will give it, the Letter you desire shall be laid before you.” Joseph Fox, Franklin, and Callender were named on June 24 to draft a rejoinder. It was read, approved, and carried to the governor on June 27. The House adjourned on June 28 until September 1, but because of Braddock’s defeat it was called again into special session on July 23.

May it please the Governor,
[June 16, 1755]
It has always been the Custom in this Province, when the Assemblies have been called by our Governors on Occasion of Letters received, to communicate such Letters to the House for their Consideration.
To give a Committee of the House a Sight of such Letters, does not seem to us sufficient; for if the Letters are to be the Foundation of any important Step to be taken by the Assembly, we think they should lie before the House, to be read as often as is necessary to a thorough Understanding of the Matters they contain or require.
We know not what Assurances the Governor expects us to give, that the General’s Letter shall not be printed, nor what will be satisfactory; nor are we inclined to give any Assurances of the Kind, till we see the Letter; nor do we think any previous Assurances necessary, being certain that the Prudence of the House will be sufficient to prevent the Publication of any Thing that is unfit for the Publick View.
And since the Importance of the Contents of that Letter is given by the Governor, as the Reason of his hasty calling us together at this unseasonable Time of the Year, and as we cannot take the Letter into Consideration without seeing it, we hope he will not, by starting new Methods of Proceeding, and engaging us in trivial Disputes, any longer obstruct or delay the Publick Service.


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from Richard Jackson, [17 June 1755]
From: Jackson, Richard
To: Franklin, Benjamin

Dear Sir,
[June 17, 1755]
It is now near three years since I received your excellent Observations on the Increase of Mankind, &c. in which you have with so much sagacity and accuracy shewn in what manner, and by what causes, that principal means of political grandeur is best promoted; and have so well supported those just inferences you have occasionally drawn, concerning the general state of our American colonies, and the views and conduct of some of the inhabitants of Great-Britain.
You have abundantly proved that natural fecundity is hardly to be considered, because the vis generandi, as far as we know, is unlimited, and because experience shews that the numbers of nations is altogether governed by collateral causes, and among these none of so much force as quantity of subsistence, whether arising from climate, soil, improvement of tillage, trade, fisheries, secure property, conquest of new countries, or other favourable circumstances.
As I perfectly concurred with you in your sentiments on these heads, I have been very desirous of building somewhat on the foundation you have there laid; and was induced by your hints in the twenty-first section, to trouble you with some thoughts on the influence manners have always had, and are always likely to have on the numbers of a people, and their political prosperity in general. [I have been prevented executing this by a Disorder on my Spirits that has hitherto made it very uneasy to me to lay my Thoughts together on any Subject; this Obstruction is not removed, tho’ lessened, but I shall endeavour to prepare a few Sheets for your Perusal against Mr. Winslow’s Departure.]
The end of every individual is its own private good. The rules it observes in the pursuit of this good, are a system of propositions, almost every one founded in authority, that is, derive their weight from the credit given to one or more persons, and not from demonstration.
And this, in the most important as well as the other affairs of life, is the case even of the wisest and philosophical part of the human species; and that it should be so is the less strange, when we consider that it is, perhaps, impossible to prove, that being, or life itself, has any other value than what is set on it by authority.
A confirmation of this may be derived from the observation, that in every country in the universe, happiness is sought upon a different plan; and, even in the same country, we see it placed by different ages, professions, and ranks of men, in the attainment of enjoyments utterly unlike.
These propositions, as well as others, framed upon them, become habitual by degrees, and, as they govern the determination of the will, I call them moral habits.
There are another set of habits that have the direction of the members of the body, that I call therefore mechanical habits. These compose what we commonly call The Arts, which are more or less liberal or mechanical, as they more or less partake of assistance from the operations of the mind.
The cumulus of the moral habits of each individual, is the manners of that individual; the cumulus of the manners of individuals makes up the manners of a nation.
The happiness of individuals is evidently the ultimate end of political society; and political welfare, or the strength, splendour, and opulence of the state, have been always admitted, both by political writers, and the valuable part of mankind in general, to conduce to this end, and are therefore desirable.
The causes that advance or obstruct any one of these three objects, are external or internal. The latter may be divided into physical, civil, and personal, under which last head I comprehend the moral and mechanical habits of mankind. The physical causes are principally climate, soil, and number of subjects; the civil are government and laws; and political welfare is always in a ratio composed of the force of these particular causes; a multitude of external causes, and all these internal ones, not only controul and qualify, but are constantly acting on, and thereby insensibly, as well as sensibly, altering one another, both for the better and the worse, and this not excepting the climate itself.
The powerful efficacy of manners in increasing a people, is manifest from the instance you mention, the Quakers; among them industry and frugality multiplies and extends the use of the necessaries of life; to manners of a like kind are owing the populousness of Holland, Switzerland, China, Japan, most parts of Indostan, &c. in every one of which the force of extent of territory and fertility of soil is multiplied, or their want compensated by industry and frugality.
Neither nature nor art have contributed much to the production of subsistence in Switzerland, yet we see frugality preserves, and even increases families that live on their fortunes, and which, in England, we call the Gentry; and the observation we cannot but make in the Southern part of this kingdom, that those families, including all superior ones, are gradually becoming extinct, affords the clearest proof that luxury (that is, a greater expence of subsistence than in prudence a man ought to consume) is as destructive as a proportionable want of it; but in Scotland, as in Switzerland, the Gentry, though one with another they have not one-fourth of the income, increase in number.
And here I cannot help remarking, by the by, how well founded your distinction is between the increase of mankind in old and new settled countries in general, and more particularly in the case of families of condition. In America, where their expences are more confined to necessaries, and those necessaries are cheap, it is common to see above one hundred persons descended from one living old man. In England it frequently happens, where a Man has seven, eight, or more children, there has not been a descendant in the next generation, occasioned by the difficulties the number of children has brought on the family, in a luxurious dear country, and which have prevented their marrying.
That this is more owing to luxury than meer want, appears from what I have said of Scotland, and more plainly from parts of England remote from London, in most of which the necessaries of life are nearly as dear, in some dearer than in London, yet the people of all ranks marry and breed up children.
Again; among the lower ranks of life, none produce so few children as servants. This is, in some measure, to be attributed to their situation, which hinders marriage, but it is also to be attributed to their luxury, and corruption of manners, which are greater than among any other set of people in England, and is the consequence of a nearer view of the lives and persons of a superior rank, than any inferior rank, without a proper education, ought to have.
The quantity of subsistence in England has unquestionably become greater for many ages; and yet if the inhabitants are more numerous, they certainly are not so in proportion to our improvement of the means of support. I am apt to think there are few parts of this kingdom that have not been at some former time more populous than at present. I have several cogent reasons for thinking so, of great part of the counties I am most intimately acquainted with; but as they were probably not all most populous at the same time, and as some of our towns are visibly and vastly grown in bulk, I dare not suppose, as judicious men have done, that England is less peopled than heretofore.
This growth of our towns is the effect of a change of manners, and improvement of arts, common to all Europe; and though it is not imagined that it has lessened the country growth of necessaries, it has evidently, by introducing a greater consumption of them, (an infallible consequence of a nation’s dwelling in towns) counteracted the effects of our prodigious advances in the arts.
But however frugality may supply the place of, or prodigality counteract the effects of the natural or acquired subsistence of a country, industry is, beyond doubt, a more efficacious cause of plenty than any natural advantage of extent or fertility. I have mentioned instances of frugality and industry united with extent and fertility; in Spain and Asia minor, we see frugality joined to extent and fertility, without industry; in Ireland we once saw the same; Scotland had then none of them but frugality. The change in these two countries is obvious to every one, and it is owing to industry not yet very widely diffused in either.

The effects of industry and frugality in England are surprizing; both the rent and the value of the inheritance of land depend on them greatly more than on nature, and this though there is no considerable difference in the prices of our markets. Land of equal goodness lets for double the rent of other land lying in the same county, and there are many years purchase difference between different counties, where rents are equally well paid and secure.
Thus manners operate upon the number of inhabitants, but of their silent effects upon a civil constitution, history and even our own experience, yields us abundance of proofs, though they are not uncommonly attributed to external causes: Their support of a government against external force is so great, that it is a common maxim among the advocates of liberty, that no free government was ever dissolved, or overcome, before the manners of its subjects were corrupted.
The superiority of Greece over Persia, was singly owing to their difference of manners; and that, though all natural advantages were on the side of the latter, to which I might add the civil ones; for though the greatest of all civil advantages, Liberty, was on the side of Greece, yet that added no political strength to her, than as it operated on her manners, and, when they were corrupted, the restoration of their liberty by the Romans, overturned the remains of their power.
Whether the manners of ancient Rome were, at any period, calculated to promote the happiness of individuals, it is not my design to examine; but that their manners, and the effects of those manners on their government, and publick conduct, founded, enlarged, and supported, and afterwards overthrew their empire, is beyond all doubt. One of the effects of their conquest furnishes us with a strong proof how prevalent manners are, even beyond quantity of subsistence; for, when the custom of bestowing on the citizens of Rome corn enough to support themselves and families, was become established, and Egypt and Sicily produced the grain that fed the inhabitants of Italy, this became less populous every day, and the Jus trium liberorum was but an expedient that could not balance the want of industry and frugality.
But corruption of manners did not only thin the inhabitants of the Roman empire, it rendered the remainder incapable of defence, long before its fall, perhaps before the dissolution of the Republic: so that without standing disciplined armies composed of men, whose moral habits principally, and mechanical habits secondarily, made them different from the body of the people, the Roman empire had been a prey to the Barbarians many ages before it was.
By the mechanical habits of the soldiery, I mean their discipline, and the art of war; and that this is but a secondary quality, appears from the inequality that has in all ages been between raw, though well disciplined armies, and veterans, and more from the irresistible force of a single moral habit, Religion, has conferred on troops frequently neither disciplined nor experienced.
The military manners of the Noblesse in France, compose the chief force of that kingdom, and the enterprizing manners, and restless dispositions of the inhabitants of Canada have enabled a handful of men to harrass our populous, and, generally, less martial colonies; yet neither are of the value they seem at first sight, because, overbalanced by the defect they occasion of other habits that would produce more eligible political good: And military manners in a people are not necessary in an age and country where such manners may be occasionally formed and preserved among men enough to defend the state; and such a country is Great-Britain, where, though the lower class of people are by no means of a military cast, yet they make better soldiers than even the Noblesse of France.
The inhabitants of this country, a few ages back, were to the populous and rich provinces of France, what Canada is now to the British colonies. It is true, there was less disproportion between their natural strength; but I mean that the riches of France were a real weakness opposed to the military manners founded upon poverty and a rugged disposition, then the character of the English; but it must be remembered, that at this time the manners of a people were not distinct from that of their soldiery, for the use of standing armies has deprived a military people of the advantages they before had over others; and though it has been often said, that civil wars give power, because they render all men soldiers, I believe this has only been found true in internal wars, following civil wars, and not in external ones; for now, in foreign wars, a small army with ample means to support it, is of greater force than one more numerous, with less. This last fact has often happened between France and Germany.

The means of supporting armies, and, consequently, the power of exerting external strength, are best found in the industry and frugality of the body of a people living under a government and laws that encourage commerce, for commerce is at this day almost the only stimulus that forces every one to contribute a share of labour for the publick benefit.
But such is the human frame, and the world is so constituted, that it is a hard matter to possess ones self of a benefit, without laying ones self open to a loss on some other side; the improvements of manners of one sort, often deprave those of another: Thus we see industry and frugality under the influence of commerce, which I call a commercial spirit, tend to destroy, as well as support, the government it flourishes under.
Commerce perfects the arts, but more the mechanical than the liberal, and this for an obvious reason; it softens and enervates the manners. Steady virtue, and unbending integrity, are seldom to be found where a spirit of commerce pervades every thing; yet the perfection of commerce is, that every thing should have its price. We every day see its progress, both to our benefit and detriment here. Things that boni mores are forbid to be set to sale, are become its objects, and there are few things indeed extra commercium. The legislative power itself has been in commercio, and church livings are seldom given without consideration, even by sincere Christians, and for consideration not seldom to very unworthy persons. The rudeness of ancient military times, and the fury of more modern enthusiastic ones, are worn off; even the spirit of forensic contention is astonishingly diminished, all marks of manners softening; but Luxury and Corruption have taken their places, and seem the inseparable companions of Commerce and the Arts.
I cannot help observing, however, that this is much more the case in extensive countries, especially at their metropolis, than in other places. It is an old observation of politicians, and frequently made by historians, that small states always best preserve their manners; whether this happens from the greater room there is for attention in the legislature, or from the less room there is for Ambition and Avarice, it is a strong argument, among others, against an incorporating union of the colonies in America, or even a federal one, that may tend to the future reducing them under one government.

Their power, while united, is less, but their liberty, as well as manners, is more secure; and, considering the little danger of any conquest to be made upon them, I had rather they should suffer something through disunion, than see them under a general administration less equitable than that concerted at Albany.
I take it, the inhabitants of Pennsylvania are both frugal and industrious beyond those of any province in America. If luxury should spread, it cannot be extirpated by laws. We are told by Plutarch, that Plato used to say, It was a hard thing to make laws for the Cyrenians, a people abounding in plenty and opulence.
But from what I set out with, it is evident, if I be not mistaken, that education only can stem the torrent, and without checking either true industry or frugality, prevent the sordid frugality and laziness of the old Irish, and many of the modern Scotch, (I mean the inhabitants of that country, those who leave it for another being generally industrious) or the industry, mixed with luxury, of this capital, from getting ground, and by rendering ancient manners familiar, produce a reconciliation between disinterestedness and commerce; a thing we often see, but almost always in men of a liberal education.
To conclude; when we would form a people, soil and climate may be found, at least sufficiently good: Inhabitants may be encouraged to settle, and even supported for a while; a good government and laws may be framed, and even arts may be established, or their produce imported; but many necessary moral habits are hardly ever found among those who voluntarily offer themselves in times of quiet at home, to people new colonies; besides that the moral, as well as mechanical habits, adapted to a mother country, are frequently not so to the new settled one, and to external events, many of which are always unforeseen. Hence it is we have seen such fruitless attempts to settle colonies, at an immense public and private expence, by several of the powers of Europe: And it is particularly observable that none of the English colonies became any way considerable, till the necessary manners were born and grew up in the county [country], excepting those to which singular circumstances at home forced manners fit for the forming a new state. I am, Sir, &c.
R.J.


Title: Preamble for a Bill, [18 June 1755]
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To:

On April 2 the Assembly had voted £15,000 from funds of the General Loan Office to repay money borrowed for victualling Braddock’s troops and provisioning the proposed expedition against Crown Point. By the middle of June these funds were practically exhausted and additional sums appeared to be necessary for these and other military expenditures. Therefore on the morning of June 18 the Assembly appointed a committee of nine, including Franklin, to prepare a bill to provide “a farther Sum to the King’s Use.” The draft preamble for this bill survives in Franklin’s hand.
The bill was presented the same afternoon and passed and sent to the governor on June 21. As usual Morris proposed amendments which the House would not accept and the measure failed of passage.

  [June 18, 1755]
An Act for Sinking the Sum of Fifteen Thousand Pounds, in Bills of Credit, and giving the same to the King’s Use; and for providing a Fund to sink the Bills so to be emitted.
Whereas the King’s Service at this Time requires Supplies from this Province, and the Fifteen Thousand Pounds lately given by this Assembly is expended in Provisions for the Forces immediately under the Command of General Braddock, and for those about to march from New England to secure his Majesty’s Territories, and the Treasury is by that Gift and sundry other heavy publick Charges nearly exhausted: We therefore, the Representatives of the Freemen of the Province of Pennsylvania, being desirous of demonstrating our Duty to our Sovereign, and willing to give farther Testimony of our Loyalty and the most sincere Affection of his loving Subjects within this Province, do pray: that it may be enacted, and be it Enacted by, &c.


Title: From Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson, 26 June 1755
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To: Collinson, Peter

Dear Friend
Philada. June 26. 1755
Mr. Bartram brings a Box to my House, which has a little Vacancy in it; so I put in my Philosophical Pacquet, which I long since intended to send you, but one thing or other has prevented. I would not have any Part of it printed, (unless you should think that printing the Papers relating to Whirlwinds and Water Spouts, together with a Collection of all the Accounts of Spouts and Whirlwinds that have been hitherto publish’d, might excite the Curiosity of Naturalists, and the Attention of Shipmasters and other Travellers, so as to occasion more accurate Observations of those Phaenomena, and produce more particular Accounts, tending to a thorough Explanation. If you should be of that Opinion, I have no Objection to the Making that Use of the Papers on that Subject; but the rest are only for your private Amusement, and when perused I must request you to return them.
I also send you a few Sheets of Paper made of the Asbestos. I am sorry it is so tender. I made some formerly that was much stronger. Please to present a Sheet of it to your noble President, if he will be so good as to accept such a Trifle.
I enclose you a second Bill for £25 Sterling on Account of the Library Company. I must desire you to send us Johnson’s Dictionary, and one for the Academy. The old Accounts of the first Settlement of the Colonies, are very Curious, and very acceptable to the Library Company, who direct me to return you their hearty Thanks for your Kindness in sparing them to the Library.
The Box not being full, I have put in a few more of our Candles, which I recommend for your particular Use when you have Occasion to read or write by Night; they give a whiter Flame than that of any other kind of Candle, and the Light is more like Daylight than any other Light I know; besides, they need little or no Snuffing, and grease nothing. There is still a little Vacancy at the End of the Box, so I’ll put in a few Cakes of American Soap made of Myrtle Wax, said to be the best Soap in the World for Shaving or Washing fine Linnens, &c. Mrs. Franklin requests your Daughter would be so good as to accept 3 or 4 Cakes of it, to wash your Grandson’s finest Things with.
In your Gentleman’s Magazine for February 1755, I see a Letter from R. Brooke of Maryland, mentioning an American Animal which he says he believes had not been seen or described in Europe. I imagine it to be the same that in New England is called a Woodchuck. When I was on my Journey in that Country last Winter, one of them was killed in the Garden of an Inn I put up at: Having never seen one of them before, I immediately took some Notes towards a Description of it, to show our Friend Bartram, who tells me it is what we here call a Ground Hog. I send you my Notes enclos’d.
I am endeavouring to answer Dr. Parsons’s Request relating to the Indian Names of the Cardinal Numbers. Please to give the enclos’d concerning an extraordinary Worm bred in a Woman’s Liver, to Dr. Clephane.
I hope you have got the Remainder of Douglas. I know I have sent it, but forget by whom.

I have before me your Account dated May. 2, 1754: in it I am charged with Dr. Blair’s Chronology and Binding £2 9s. 0d. As that Book was for the Academy, please to charge the Trustees of the Academy with it, and take it out of my Account, if there is, as I suppose there is, a Ballance of theirs in your Hands; if not, let it stand in my Account and I will charge them.
I send you the Hospital Book and our late Votes. In yours of Aug. 4. you express your Concern that such trifling Punctilio’s in our Publick Affairs should obstruct necessary Measures. You will see more of the same Trifling in these Votes, on both sides. I am heartily sick of our present Situation: I like neither the Governor’s Conduct nor the Assembly’s, and having some Share in the Confidence of both, I have endeavour’d to reconcile ’em, but in vain, and between ’em they make me very uneasy. I was chosen last Year in my Absence, and was not at the Winter Sitting when the House sent home that Address to the King, which I am afraid was both ill-judg’d and ill-tim’d. If my being able now and then to influence a Good Measure did not keep up my Spirits, I should be ready to swear never to serve again as an Assembly-man, since both Sides expect more from me than they ought, and blame me sometimes for not doing what I am not able to do, as well as for not preventing what was not in my Power to prevent. The Assembly ride restive; and the Governor, tho’ he spurs with both Heels, at the same time reins-in with both Hands, so that the Publick Business can never move forward; and he remains like St. George in the Sign, always a Horseback, and never going on. Did you never hear this old Catch?

There was a mad Man, He had a mad Wife
And three mad Sons beside;
And they all got upon a mad Horse
And madly they did ride.

’Tis a Compendium of our Proceedings, and may save you the Trouble of reading them.
Here is one Mr. Hazard, who, happening to see last Fall a Paper of mine on the Means of Settling a new Colony westward of Pensilvania, (drawn up to divert the Connecticut Emigrants from their Design of Invading this Province, and to induce them to go where they would be less injurious and more useful) and picking out something farther from me in Conversation, has publish’d a Scheme for that purpose in my Absence, wherein he has added some Things and left out others, and now (like your Firehearth Man) calls it his own Project. He aims at great Matters for himself, hoping to become a Proprietor like Mr. Penn, &c. and has got, they say, a great Number of Settlers engag’d to go with him, if he can get a Grant of the Land from the Crown. It is certain, that People enough may be had, to make a strong English Settlement or two in those Parts. I wish to see it done, and am almost indifferent how or by whom it is done; yet I think this Man not the fittest in the World to conduct such an Affair. I hear he intends soon for England.
Mr. Bird, I find, is of Opinion, that it is impracticable to mend my broken Thermometer. The Tube was whole, and only the Ball broke. I got a thin Copper Ball nicely made, and fix’d to the Tube, with a Screw Plug entering the Ball at the Bottom; by means of which Screw going into the Cavity of the Ball, more or less, among the Mercury, I hoped to lessen or enlarge the Cavity at Pleasure, and by that Means find the true Quantity of Mercury it ought to contain, to rise and fall exactly with the others in the same Temperature of Air, &c. I only tell you this, that you and Mr. Bird may divert your selves with laughing at me. I was much pleas’d with my Project, but I find Difficulties in the Execution which I did not foresee, tho’ they must occur to him immediately.
Our Academy goes on very well. Our Friend Smith will be very serviceable there. We have drawn our first Lottery, and are engag’d in a second, as you will see by our Papers. Mr. Smith will write fully about the Charity Schools, which I think cannot fail of Success if suitable Funds are provided.
I purpose to write to the ingenious Mr. Canton on his very curious Experiments annext to my last Paper. I am oblig’d to him for the Kindness you mention. It is a great Pleasure to me that his Observations evince the various State of the Clouds, (as to positive and negative Electricity,) as well as mine. I was afraid of being thought out of my senses.
I hope the Plan of Union, which you express your Approbation of, or something like it, will take Place and be established by the King and Parliament. ’Till that is done never expect to see an American War carried on as it ought to be, nor Indian Affairs properly managed.
I shall be glad to see Dr. Mitchel’s Map, and will endeavour to sell some for him if he sends them.

The Heirs of our Friend Logan have honourably settled the Library agreable to their Father’s Intention. I am one of the Trustees. The Books are now plac’d in the Library House he built and gave for that purpose. They deserve Praise for this Conduct; for some Children would have taken Advantage of the Settlement not being perfected by the Father, and refus’d to comply with it.
The Library Company will be glad to have Murray’s Treatise of Ship-Building. We have the three first Vols. of Shuckford. The new Catalogue is now in the Press, which I will send you as soon as finish’d. I do not remember that you have sent any of the Reviews, but will enquire.
I send you two of my Fireplace Pieces, as you desire, which please to accept; and when Mr. Harris’s Improvements come out please to communicate them to me.
I saw our Friend Elliot in my late New England Journey. He is very well, and still studying Improvements in Husbandry.
You are undoubtedly right in your Opinion that Niagara should be secur’d. Measures are now taking for that purpose, of which no doubt you have already had Advices.
I will some Day muster up all the Papers and Letters I have, relating to Swain’s fruitless Expeditions, and send them to you.
I like much your Proposal of setting some Person to write the History of this Colony; but a suitable Hand, who has Leisure, is hard to find.
Thus, my dear Friend, I have run thro’ all your late Letters, answering every particular that requires an Answer: And now have only to request you would send my Wife Sattin sufficient for a Gown, somewhat darker than the enclos’d Pattern; which concludes this long Epistle from Your affectionate Friend
B Franklin
P.S. Capt. Shirley I hear is going this minute, so am prevented writing to my other London Friends, but hope to do it per Capt. Young, who sails in a few Days.
Mr. Collinson


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from Richard Brooke, 27 June 1755
From: Brooke, Richard
To: Franklin, Benjamin

Dear Sir
Maryland 27. June 1755.
I embrace this first Opportunity that hath presented itself to return You my thanks for the very polite and Hospitable Entertaintment I met with from You when I was at Philadelphia last Year, and have deferrd it till now, that the only Subject of my Letter might not be an acknowledgment of Your Civilities, which, I believe You had rather perform than be told of. I can then write upon a Subject which is more agreeable to You, and which, for ought I know, may afford You an Occasion of publishing Your Researches still farther on the favourable Subject of Your Studies. I am furnished with the History of a Phaenomenon which may not have been commonly, if at all observed before, or is however new to me.
Mrs. Addison a Widow Lady in our Neighbourhood has a large Brick House, 70 or 80 feet long, two Chimneys at each end and a Cupulo in the middle; on the Top of the Cupolo is an Iron Weather-cock the Spire of which, I believe is about 12 feet higher then the Tops of the Chimneys: The latter end of last Month there was a violent Thunder Gust from the N. W. a Flash of Lightning struck the N. E. Dormant Window, took off one Facing and broke some of the Glass, then descended down a pine Rafter to within four feet of the Foot of it, the Lightning splintered the Rafter pretty much, but here it met with a very unctuous Terpentine knot which repelled it eight feet horizontally along the Plate; the Plate is not hurt, from hence the Lightning descended perpendicularly, between the Wainscot and the Wall, into the Chamber, near an upright Window and behind a large looking Glass, some of the Mortar fell into the Window and the Shock broke some of the Glass; the Tin, near the Top of the Looking Glass, which stands aslope from the Wall, was melted, and part of the Frame, at the Bottom was burst of with such Violence as to be heave into the middle of the Floor; it did not crack the Wainscot or do any other Damage in the Chamber; it then descended into Mrs. Addison’s lodging Room, where she was then aBed and asleep, in the same Direction that it had past thro’ the Chamber, here the Wainscot was split, tho’ not splintered; within four Inches of the Southermost Frame of another Looking Glass which is directly under that in the Chamber, and within eight Inches of an Iron Curtain Rod that was hung horizontally over the Window; the Northermost Corner of this Glass was cracked, then the Lightning passed thro’ the Ground Floor a few Inches North of the Glass; it shivered the Plank and made an hole You might run Your Finger through; we could trace it no farther, for it has not even broke the white-wash under the last mentioned Perforation: The Noise waked Mrs. Addison, she observed two Balls of Fire in the Room, about the Size of Pidgeon’s Eggs which soon we[n]t out, without Noise, and left, a considerable time afterwards, a strong Sulphurious Smell in the Room.
Perhaps all these Phaenomena are accounted for in Your Book, which I have not yet had the happiness of seeing; but if they are not, You Sir, are the properest Person to recieve such communications who have had the Honour of making that useful and wonderful Discovery of the similitude between Electrical and Tonitruous Matter! A Discovery far more Philosophical and beneficial than those for which many of the Antients were Deifyed! Permit me Sir to propose some Queries: Why does not the Spire, on the Top of the Weathercock act as the pointed Wire in Your Machine and attract the Lightning from the Clouds? If You say it does, what becomes of it afterwards? for there is no Conductor continued from it to the Ground, but there are indeed, under the Vane, a great many Iron Bars curved in Different Directions: Do these Bars act as so many Conductors and so divide the force of the Lightning and alter it’s Direction as to prevent it’s doing much Damage? If we consider the several concurrent Circumstances, this will not appear an improbable Supposition: Till then we had had the longest continued Drought ever remembered at that Season of the Year; the Mercury was remarkably high in the Thermometer and consequently the Air was more crouded with the Materia tonitrualis (what ever it is) than usual: The House was never struck before, but at this time it was slightly touched in four or five different and distant parts of it. Whither a Conductor continued from one of these curved Bars would not be the likeliest way to prevent the House from Lightning for the future? What was the Conductor to the Lightning after it was repelled by the Turpentine Knot, for it has not singed the Plate; and whither there can be an estimate made between the repellent Power of the Terpentine and the attractive power of the Earth, by taking the Quantity of the Terpentine in the Knot and it’s distance from the Earth? Why was not the Lightning attracted by the Horizontal Iron Rod in Mrs. Addison’s Room? What became of the Lightning after it past thro’ the Plank which is about four feet from the Surface of the Earth? Whither the best method to secure a House which hath a Chimney at each end, is not to finish one Chimney with well glazed Bricks and the Mortar between the Bricks of the last Layer to be covered with Glass, then erect Your Machine on the other Chimney?
Pray give my Compliments to my two Countrymen, Messrs. Bonds, and do me the justice to believe me Dear Sir Your most obliged humble Servant
Richd. Brooke


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from Catharine Ray, 28 June 1755
From: Ray, Catharine
To: Franklin, Benjamin

Dear, Dear Sir,
Block Island June the 28th [1755]
Excues my writeing when I tell you it is the great regard I have for you will not let me be Silent, for Absence rather increasis than lesens my affections then, my not receiveing one line from you in answer to 3 of my last letters March the 3d and 31st and April the 28th gives me a Vast deal of uneasiness and occation’d many tears, for Suerly I have wrote too much and you are affronted with me or have not received my letters in which I have Said a thousand things that nothing Should have tempted me to [have] Said to any body els for I knew they wold be Safe with you. I’ll only beg the favor of one line. What is become of my letters? Tel me you are well and forgive me and love me one thousandth Part So well as I do you and then I will be Contented and Promise an amendment. It is with the greatest reluctance I Shall finish my letter with out telling you of Some great alterations Since my last but you have my Promise So I will Pray God to Bless you with the Best of Blessings and Subcribe my Self Dear Sir your most Sincere affectionate and obliged friend
C Ray
My Proper Respects to Mrs. Franklin and Daugter.
Pray take care of your health and except the Sugar Plums they are every one Sweetn’d as you used to like.
 Addressed: To / Benjamin Franklin Esqr.


Title: From Benjamin Franklin to Thomas-François Dalibard, 29 June 1755
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To: Dalibard, Thomas-François

Peter Collinson presented the scientific portions of this letter to the Royal Society on Dec. 18, 1755; it was printed in the Philosophical Transactions, and has been frequently reprinted since. The personal parts — the first three and the last paragraphs and one in the middle — survive only in Dalibard’s translation of Franklin’s Experiments and Observations. The editors have decided to follow the Royal Society manuscript copy and to add their own retranslation of the several French paragraphs.

Sir,
Philadelphia 29 June 1755
I have for a long time owed you a reply to your last letter dated June. 20, 1754. I received it in January last while I was at Boston in New England, and since then I have been so occupied by my travels in different places and with public business that I am extremely behind with my correspondents.
I sent you last year a manuscript containing some new experiments and observations on lightning; I do not know whether you have received it, but it has been since printed at London, and I imagine that our good friend Mr. Collinson will have sent you a copy.
I thank you for your kindness in sending me the four volumes of M. de Buffon’s Natural History, the maps, &c.
You desire my opinion of Pere Beccaria’s Italian Book. I have read it with much Pleasure, and think it one of the best pieces on the Subject that I have seen in any Language. Yet as to the Article of Waterspouts, I am not at present of his Sentiments; tho’ I must own with you, that he has handled it very ingeniously. Mr. Collinson has my Opinion of Whirlwinds and Waterspouts at large, written sometime since: I know not whether they will be publish’d; if not, I will get them Transcrib’d for your Perusal. It does not appear to me that Pere Beccaria doubts of the absolute Impermeability of Glass in the sense I meant it; for the Instances he gives of Holes made thro’ Glass by the electric Stroke, are such as we have all experienc’d, and only shew that the electric Fluid could not pass without making a Hole. In the same Manner we say, Glass is impermeable to Water, and yet a Stream from a Fire Engine will force thro’ the strongest Panes of a Window. As to the Effect of Points in drawing the electric Matter from Clouds and thereby securing Buildings, &c. which you say he seems to doubt, I must own I think he only speaks modestly and judiciously. I find I have been but partly understood in that Matter. I have mentiond it in several of my Letters, and except once, always in the Alternative, viz. that pointed Rods erected on Buildings, and communicating with the moist Earth would either prevent a Stroke, or, if not prevented, would conduct it, so as that the Building should suffer no Damage. Yet whenever my opinion is examin’d in Europe, nothing is consider’d but the Probability of those Rods preventing a Stroke, or Explosion, which is only a Part of the Use I proposed from them, and the other part, their conducting a Stroke which they may happen not to prevent, seems to be totally forgotten, tho’ of equal Importance and Advantage.
I shall be very glad to be acquainted with the experiments of M. le Roy on positive and negative electricity, when you can impart them to me.
I thank you for communicating M. de Buffon’s Relation of the Effect of Lightning at Dijon on the 7th of June last. In return give me leave to relate an Instance I lately saw of the same kind. Being in the Town of Newbury in New England in November last, I was shewn the Effect of Lightning on their Church, which had been struck a few Months before.
The Steeple was a Square Tower of Wood, reaching 70 feet up from the Ground, to the place where the Bell hung, over which rose a Taper spire, of Wood likewise, reaching 70 Foot higher, to the Vane or Weather Cock.
Near the Bell was fix’d an Iron Hammer to strike the Hours; and from the Tail of the Hammer a Wire went down thro’ a small Gimlet Hole in the Floor that the Bell stood upon, and thro’ a second Floor in like manner; then horizontally under and near the plaister’d Cieling of that second Floor, till it came near a plaister’d Wall; then down by the side of that Wall to a Clock, which stood about 20 feet below the Bell. The Wire was not bigger than a common Knitting Needle. The Spire was split all to pieces by the Lightning and the parts flung in all Directions over the square in which the Church stood, so that nothing remain’d above the Bell.
The Lightning pass’d between the Hammer and the Clock in the abovemention’d Wire, without hurting either of the Floors or having any Effect upon them, except making the Gimlet Holes, thro’ which the Wire pass’d, a little bigger, and without hurting the plaister’d Wall, or any part of the Building so far as the aforesaid Wire and the Pendulum Wire of the Clock extended, which latter Wire was about the Thickness of a Goose Quill. From the End of the Pendulum down quite to the Ground, the Building was exceedingly rent and damaged, and some Stones in the Foundation Wall torn out, and thrown to the Distance of 20 or 30 feet. No part of the aforemention’d long small Wire, between the Clock and the Hammer, cou’d be found, except about two Inches that hung to the Tail of the Hammer, and about as much that was fastened to the Clock; the rest being exploded, and its particles dissipated in Smoke and Air, as Gunpowder is by common Fire, and had only left a black smutty Track on the Plaistering, three or four Inches broad, darkest in the middle, and fainter towards the Edges, all along the Cieling under which it passed, and down the Wall. These were the Effects and Appearances; on which I would only make the few following Remarks. Viz.
1. That Lightning, in its passage thro’ a Building, will leave Wood to pass as far as it can in Metal, and not enter the Wood again till the Conductor of Metal ceases.

And the same I have observ’d in other Instances, as to Walls of Brick or Stone.
2. The Quantity of Lightning that pass’d thro’ this Steeple must have been very great by its Effects on the lofty Spire above the Bell, and on the Square Tower all below the End of the Clock pendulum.
3. Great as this Quantity was, it was conducted by a small Wire and a Clock pendulum, without the least Damage to the Building so far as they extended.
4. The Pendulum Rod being of a sufficient Thickness, conducted the Lightning without Damage to itself, but the small Wire was utterly destroy’d.
5. Tho’ the small Wire was itself destroy’d, yet it had conducted the Lightning with safety to the Building.
6. And from the Whole it seems probable, that if even such a small Wire had been extended from the Spindle of the Vane to the Earth, before the Storm, no Damage would have been done to the Steeple by that Stroke of Lightning, tho’ the Wire itself had been destroy’d.
I apprehend that M. de Buffon’s Natural History will give me much pleasure and teach me greatly. Assure him, I beg you, of my respects, as well as M. de Fontferrière, who have both given me tokens of their remembrance in your last letter. I am, &c.
B. Franklin


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from Jonathan Belcher, 9 July 1755
From: Belcher, Jonathan
To: Franklin, Benjamin

Eliza. Town (N.J.) July 9: 1755
[Missing] therefore take the Freedom of desiring you to deliver him the Inclosed and to shew him your wonted Civility with the Curiosities of your City. My Compliments wait on Madam Franklin and I am, Sir Your assured Friend and Servant.
Mr. Franklin


Title: From Benjamin Franklin to Ezra Stiles, 10 July 1755
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To: Stiles, Ezra

Dear Sir
Philada. July 10. 1755
This is only to acknowledge the Receipt of three very agreable Letters from you, and to promise an Answer as soon as I have a little got thro’ a Hurry of Business, that beats every philosophical Thought out of my Head. As you are on the Study of Magnetism, I send you herewith a Work of the greatest Master of Practical Magnetics that has appear’d in any Age. With very great Esteem and Respect, I am, Sir, Your most obedient humble Servant
B. Franklin
Mr. Stiles.
 Endorsed: B Franklin’s Letter July 10th 1755. Received July 16. 1755.


Title: Rules and Statutes of the College, Academy, and Charity School; Laws and Statutes of the Trustees, 11 July 1755
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To:

The trustees of the College of Philadelphia on June 10 (see above, p. 29) appointed Franklin and five others to examine and report on a draft of rules and statutes, probably prepared by Franklin himself, which had been submitted to the board for adoption. On July 11 Franklin reported as president that the committee had considered the draft and made some changes; whereupon it was read, approved, and enacted.

  In the College and Academy Hall July 11th. 1755
    Rules and Statutes of the College Academy and Charity-School of Philadelphia.

Sect. 1.Of the general Powers of the Faculty in executing Laws.
As a Faculty, the Provost, Vice-Provost and Professors, shall have an immediate and general Regard to the Manners and Education of all the Youth belonging to this College, Academy and Charity-School.
They shall be invested with the Execution of all Laws, that shall from Time to Time be made by the Trustees for the wholsome Government of the several Members of the same; excepting in those particular Cases, wherein by Laws and Statutes hereafter to be enacted it may be thought proper to restrict them.
That they may more effectually discharge this Trust, they shall meet at least once a Fortnight in the College and Academy and oftner if the Provost think fit, or any two Members of the Faculty desire him to call a Meeting.
When met, they shall diligently examine what Proficiency the Students make from Time to Time, under their respective Professors or Tutors; and whether there be any Breach, or Neglect of the Laws of the Corporation among the Students, and shall determine all Matters by a Majority of Votes.
In Consequence of these Determinations, the Person who presides at such Meetings, as herein after directed, shall, in the Name of the Faculty, encourage and reward the deserving, and admonish, censure, or inflict such Mulcts and lesser Punishments on Delinquents, as the Majority of the Faculty so met, shall deem reasonable and conformable to the Laws then in Force.
But that Things of a more weighty Nature may be done with greater Deliberation and Solemnity, the inflicting upon any Student or Students, the greater Punishments of Expulsion, Suspension and Degradation, shall be by Direction of the Trustees only when duly met.
And, if at such Meetings of the Faculty it shall appear, that there has been a Neglect of Duty in any Professor, the Faculty shall admonish him in the most friendly Manner; but if repeated Admonitions have not the proper Effect, they shall lay the Matter before the Trustees.

Sect. 2d.Of the Legislative Power of the Faculty.
And that a Body of good Laws may speedily be compiled and perfected by Persons, who from their daily Employments in this Seminary, have frequent Opportunities of discovering the Necessity, or Utility, of particular Regulations; and because various Cases and Circumstances may arise, which no human Prudence can foresee, and against which the Laws then in Being have not sufficiently provided; the Faculty, when met, shall from Time to Time, have Power to make such Ordinances and Regulations, as they, or the major Part of them, shall judge necessary, either for the Education of the Youth, or the better Government of the several Members of this College Academy and Charity-School.
The Regulations and Ordinances so made by the Faculty shall have the same Force as Laws and Statutes of the Trustees till their first ensuing Meeting, before whom at their said first ensuing Meeting all such Regulations and Ordinances shall be laid by the Provost or any other Person they may appoint for that Purpose.
If at the first Meeting of the Trustees the said Regulations and Ordinances shall not be annulled, they shall still continue in Force, as Ordinances of the Faculty, subject to such Amendments and Alterations as the Trustees from Time to Time shall think proper; till at last by them either annulled or ratified, and enrolled among the publick Statutes.
Nevertheless no Regulation or Ordinance made by the Faculty shall be valid if they neglect to lay the same before the Trustees at their first ensuing Meeting as above directed, nor shall any Ordinance be made repugnant to the standing Laws of the Corporation.

But if the Faculty find any Amendment or Alteration of a standing Law of the Corporation necessary, they shall propose the same to the Trustees for their Consideration.

Sect. 3d.Of the particular Powers and Duties of the Provost.
The Provost shall have a general Inspection of the Morals and Behaviour of all the Youth, to admonish and regulate them in all Affairs of smaller Concern.
He shall also have Power to call a Meeting of the Faculty whenever he shall judge it necessary.
In all Meetings of the Faculty, stated or occasional, he shall preside, and likewise in all publick Acts and Disputations, and in publick Examinations and Commencements.

Sect. 4.Of the Vice-Provost.
During the necessary Absence of the Provost, the Vice-Provost shall be invested with all the Powers and do the Duties of a Provost.
Upon the Death, Cession or Removal of the Provost, the Vice-Provost shall exercise all the said Powers as he was used to do in the ordinary Absence of the Provost, till a Successor be chosen and admitted.

Sect. 5.Of the Senior Professor
In the necessary Absence of both the Provost and Vice-Provost all the aforesaid Powers shall be devolved upon the Senior Professor that shall be present, according to that Order of Precedence which shall from Time to Time be settled by the Trustees among the Professors, next after the Provost and Vice-Provost.
At a Meeting of the Corporation, the five foregoing Sections of Laws and Statutes were enacted, and ordered to be enrolled in the Book of Statutes, and a Copy of them to be delivered to the Faculty.
Signed, B. Franklin President of the Trustees.
And the following three Laws or Statutes, drawn up by the President, after being read and consider’d by the Trustees, were also enacted, to wit;

Laws or Statutes of the Trustees.Chap. I.Concerning Elections.
It is enacted by the Trustees of the College, Academy and Charitable School of Philadelphia in the Province of Pennsylvania, That all Elections to be made hereafter by the Trustees aforesaid, for the Time being, Whether of a President, Treasurer, Clerk, or other Officer of the Trustees, or of Provost, Vice-Provost, Professor of any Kind, or other Master, Usher, or Officer of the College, Academy or Charitable School, shall be made by written Tickets containing the Name or Names of the Person or Persons voted for, put into the President’s Hat by the Persons voting, and the Choice appearing to be made by a Majority of such Tickets, shall be immediately entered by the Clerk in the Minutes of the Trustees Proceedings.

Chap. II.Concerning the Meetings of the Trustees, and Officers to be chosen.
It is enacted, That the Trustees shall meet on the second Tuesday of every Month throughout the Year, at the Academy, to visit the Schools, examine the Scholars, hear their publick Exercises, and transact such other Business as may come before them, and also at such other Times and Places as they shall adjourn to at such Meetings, or as they shall be called to meet at by the President on special unforeseen Occasions.
And at their first Meeting in the Month of May yearly they shall chuse a President, for the ensuing Year, whose particular Duty it shall be, when present, to regulate their Debates, and state the Questions arising from them; to sign the Orders of the Trustees, and to direct Notices to be given of the Times and Places of their special Conventions.
They shall also at the same Time, chuse one of their own Members to be Treasurer, who shall receive all Donations and Money due to them, and disburse and lay out the same according to their Orders; And at the End of each Year pay the Sum remaining in his Hands to his Successor.
They shall also at the same Time chuse a Clerk for the ensuing Year; whose Duty it shall be to keep an exact Account of the Times of all Admissions and Departures of Students, the Quarterly Sums due from each, and the Payments made; and also to collect the Sums due from Time to Time, whether Entrance Money or Quarteridge, and pay the same Quarterly into the Hands of the Treasurer. The Clerk shall also make out and deliver written Notices to the Trustees, one Day at least before each Meeting, of the Time and Place of such Meeting; attend the Trustees at their Meetings, and take the Names of the Persons present, with true Minutes of their Proceedings.

Chap. III.Of the Number of Trustees necessary to do Business.
It is enacted That, due Notice having been left by the Clerk, in Writing, at the House of each Trustee, signifying the Time and Place of any Meeting of the Trustees, the Members that shall meet in Pursuance of such Notice, may one Hour after the Time appointed, proceed to consider any Business that shall come before them relating to their Trust; and the Determination of a Majority of those so met, shall be as valid and conclusive as if the whole Number of Trustees were present.
Provided nevertheless, That where any Money is to be laid out or disposed of, exceeding the Sum of Twenty Pounds, or any Salary to be augmented at any Meeting of the Trustees, the same shall be first proposed at a preceeding Meeting and particularly express’d in the written Notice to be given.
That the several Meetings of the Trustees may be the better attended, It is agreed, That every Trustee who shall not be at the Place of Meeting within one Hour after the Time mentioned in his written Notice, shall forfeit and pay one Shilling; and if not there till after the Meeting be over two Shillings: The said Forfeitures to be laid out in Books, Paper, Quills, Ink &c. for the Use of the Charity-School.


Title: Franklin and Hall: Notice to Subscribers, 17 July 1755
From: Franklin, Benjamin,Hall, David
To:

July 17, 1755.
Whereas an advertisement was published sometime ago by the subscribers hereof, desiring those who were indebted to them for more than one year’s Gazette to discharge the same, of which little or no notice has been taken, but many continue a great number of years in arrear; this may therefore serve to let such know, that if they do not speedily pay off their respective ballances, they will not only be no longer serv’d with this News Paper, but effectual measures will be taken to recover what is so unjustly detained.
Those who live at a distance, and incline to be serv’d with this paper, are also hereby acquainted, that it is the custom to send Five Shillings with their subscription, being so much in advance as earnest money, to be allowed in their first year’s payment. And all advertisements sent from distant places, ought to be accompanied with the money, otherwise they cannot be inserted.
Franklin and Hall.


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from Jonathan Belcher, 21 July 1755
From: Belcher, Jonathan
To: Franklin, Benjamin

Sir
Eliza. Town (NJ) July 21: 1755
I have your obliging Favour of the 14: Instant: and thank you for your intended Civility to my Son if he shoud pass in his way from Halifax thro’ your City—but by a Letter I received from him yesterday of the 1: of this Month, the Motions and Commotions at Halifax are so great that he seems uncertain when and whither he shall make his Rout.
The inclosed I received under his Cover. With mine and my Wifes Compliments to your self and Lady, I remain Sir, Your Friend and Servant.
Mr. Franklin


Title: A Parable against Persecution, [July 1755]
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To:

Written in the style of the King James Version of the Bible, the Parable against Persecution was one of Franklin’s pleasantest hoaxes, affording him and his friends much amusement. He wrote it at least as early as the summer of 1755 and took copies of it and other ephemeral pieces to England when he went over two years later. It was his practice there, as it probably had been at home, when conversations turned to religious intolerance and persecution, to call for a Bible and, pretending to read a chapter from Genesis, to recite his verses to the astonishment of the company and his own enjoyment of their comments.
Its bibliographical history is even more complicated than that of most of his bagatelles; and the question of which of several manuscript and printed copies represents his final intention, if indeed he had one, cannot be certainly answered. The Parable survives in two principal versions: the longer one, for convenience called here the Dick version, has fifteen verses in its standard form; the other, called here the Kames version, omits either the last two or the last four verses of the other and differs markedly in wording at several points. Minor differences in form or wording also appear among the examples of each principal version. No autograph manuscript in English survives, but there are several contemporary manuscript copies and a number of printings which Franklin saw and in one case corrected. There is also an undated printed copy of each of the two principal versions, sometimes thought to have been made at Franklin’s order and distributed by him to his friends, and there are four manuscript copies in his hand of his French translation.
Editors have dated it variously 1757, 1759, and 1774, but a manuscript copy of 1755 survives. They have usually called it “A Parable against Persecution,” as the present editors have done, though Franklin gave it no title, usually referring to it simply as “the Chapter,” or, at greater length, as “the Chapter of Abraham and the Stranger.” At various times it has been headed as the 22d, 25th, 27th, 39th, and 51st Chapter. Most appropriate in terms of the chronological narrative of Genesis would be the 22d, or possibly the 25th.
The earliest datable text is in the draft of a letter from Ezra Stiles of Aug. 2, 1755, enclosing for the “Amusement” of his unidentified correspondent “A Copy of 39th Chapter of Genesis, Entituled Abraham and the Stranger—wrote by B. Franklin Esqr.” This copy contains fourteen verses of the later Dick version; verse 4 as printed below does not appear, and Stiles’s consecutive numbering of the other verses suggests that Franklin may have added that short verse after giving Stiles the copy. When or how Stiles got it is not clear; Franklin may have given it to him directly during his visit to New Haven in February 1755, or he may have sent it after returning to Philadelphia. In either case, Stiles’s letter of August 2 shows that Franklin must have written it no later than July 1755—considerably earlier than has been previously supposed—and the Parable is consequently placed at this point in the present edition.
When Franklin visited Scotland with his son William in the late summer of 1759 he read his “Chapter” to several of the new friends he made there. Lady Dick, wife of Sir Alexander Dick, a distinguished physician of Edinburgh, asked for a copy, as did Lord Kames, a Scottish judge and writer. In a letter to Sir Alexander, Sept. 17, 1760, Franklin promised to improve as a correspondent and added: “Will, too, intends to grow good; and as an Earnest of it, remembers his Promise to Lady Dick and sends the Chapter.” This copy, in William Franklin’s hand, survives in the possession of a descendant of the Dicks, hence the name given here to the version of which it is the prime example. Among the surviving texts, the editors have chosen to print this one because it is known to have been made under Franklin’s direction by his son and to have been sent to a personal friend, and because in capitalization and punctuation it is closest to Franklin’s usual style.
In a letter of Jan. 24, 1760, now lost, Lord Kames apparently asked for a copy of the Parable and mentioned “a Collection of Maxims for the Conduct of Life” he was preparing for his children. Franklin did not get around to answering him until May 3, but then promised to send the Chapter “shortly” and asked in return for a copy of Kames’s Maxims when it was ready. He failed to carry out his promise, however, until Sept. 27, 1760, when he added in a postscript to a letter he wrote from Coventry while on another journey: “Inclos’d we send the Chapter.” This manuscript copy does not survive, but it undoubtedly served as the basis for the earliest known printing of the Parable against Persecution. When four months later, in January 1761, Lord Kames published the collection of maxims to which Franklin had referred and which the compiler called Introduction to the Art of Thinking, he included the Parable, without heading or any form of attribution, as one of the “Illustrations, Historical and Allegorical” appended to the maxims. This text contains thirteen unnumbered verses, omitting the last two of the Dick version as printed below, and is the earliest known example of what is here called the Kames version. Writing to Benjamin Vaughan, Nov. 2, 1789, Franklin stated that Kames had published the Chapter “without my consent.”
The Parable gained wider currency in 1764 than Kames had given it by his first printing. William Strahan sent a copy of the Dick version to the London Chronicle, where it appeared in the issue of April 17. Strahan clearly identified the author without actually naming him and described how, during a conversation on persecution, his friend had called for a Bible and read what purported to be Chapter 27 of Genesis. Upon examining his own Bible the next morning Strahan discovered that “there was no such chapter, and that the whole was a well meant invention of my friend, whose sallies of humour, in which he is a great master, have always an unusual and benevolent tendency. With some difficulty I procured a copy of what he pretended to read, which I now send you for the entertainment of your readers.” Strahan added his hope that it would not be inappropriate at that Easter season, when the Church called upon its members “to commemorate the Amazing love of HIM, who possessing the divine virtue of Charity in the most supreme degree, laid down his life EVEN FOR HIS ENEMIES.”
The source of Strahan’s text is unknown. “I was always unwilling to give a Copy of the Chapter,” Franklin wrote him Sept. 24, 1764, after seeing the London Chronicle in Philadelphia, to which he had returned, “for fear it should be printed, and by that means I should be depriv’d of the Pleasure I often had in amusing People with it. I could not however refuse it to two of the best Men in the World, Lord Kaimes and Mr. Small, and should not to the third, if he had not been a Printer. But you have overpaid me for the Loss of that Pleasure, by the kind things you have so handsomely said of your Friend in the Introduction.”
The text that Strahan printed was in sixteen numbered verses, number 13 as printed below being divided into two. It was reprinted at once by the Gentleman’s Magazine, reprinted in 1768 by the Boston Chronicle, and reprinted in Philadelphia from the Boston paper. Almost simultaneously with the appearance of the London Chronicle version, Lord Kames published a second edition of his Introduction to the Art of Thinking and included the Franklin piece without textual change from his own earlier printing. The Scots Magazine reviewed the new edition of this work, stating that this illustration had been given to Lord Kames by Dr. Franklin and that it had lately appeared in the London Chronicle with two added verses. The magazine thereupon printed the text of the Parable, using the Chronicle form of the Dick version, not the Kames version from the book under review.
In 1774 Lord Kames again printed the Parable, this time in his Sketches of the History of Man. He used his own earlier version, but in a truncated form, since only the first eleven verses appeared; these were again unnumbered and were set as a solid paragraph. The omission of verses 12 and 13 remains unexplained. He introduced the piece by saying that it “was communicated to me by Dr. Franklin of Philadelphia,” and described it as a “parable against persecution,” the earliest use known of this expression.
This shortened form of the Kames version also had a wide circulation, partly because Benjamin Vaughan reprinted it in 1779 in his edition of Franklin’s Political, Miscellaneous, and Philosophical Pieces. In a footnote Vaughan acknowledged Kames’s Sketches as his source and quoted from it the introductory sentence and concluding commentary, but he allowed a few verbal alterations to creep into his rendering of the text. As his book was going through the press Vaughan sent sheets to Franklin, who replied with a corrected text with numbered verses, including those numbered 12 through 15, which Vaughan, following Kames’s Sketches, had omitted. Unable to reset the pages, the editor could only note in the Corrigenda that his printing was “in several respects imperfect,” in particular through his failure to divide the verses and to include the last four; these he appended in substantially the form in which they appear in the Dick version.
The eleven-verse form of the Kames version also appeared elsewhere, taken either from Kames’s Sketches or from Vaughan (without the added verses in Vaughan’s Corrigenda). Carey printed this form in The American Museum for February 1787, heading it “A Fragment. A parable against persecution, or toleration and philanthropy inculcated,” and following the text with a paragraph describing the way in which Franklin read it “in company” as a genuine chapter of Genesis. A separate copy of the eleven-verse form is in the New York Public Library, printed on the second and third pages of a folded sheet small enough to be easily concealed between the leaves of a Bible. It is without heading or identification of any sort and differs from the shortened Kames version and the Vaughan printing only in that the verses are numbered and set as separate paragraphs in the usual manner of the King James Version. This has been called “the only known copy of the earliest edition” of the Parable, but there appears to be no reason to date it earlier than the shortened Kames version of 1774. The sheet was probably printed in Great Britain but at whose order is unknown.
A small printed sheet very similar in format to that in the New York Public Library, but in a different type face, is in the Library of Congress. Accompanying it is a note, dated “London New Years 1883,” by Henry Stevens, the American bookseller in London who had bought the William Temple Franklin collection of Franklin Papers now in the Library of Congress (see above, I, xxiii). Stevens called it “Franklin’s Own copy” of the Parable and explained that he had found it “among the Copy Temple Franklin had sent to Valpy in 1817.” A.J. Valpy was the printer of the Temple Franklin edition of his grandfather’s writings. The text is essentially the same as that of the fifteen-verse Dick copy printed below, except for variations in capitalization and punctuation, three differences in spelling, two unimportant changes in words, and the omission in verse 8 of the phrase “and fell upon him.” In view of Stevens’ statement of its provenance he may well be correct in his belief that this was the copy that Franklin kept in his Bible, though perhaps not, as Stevens adds, “at the end of Genesis as the 51st Chapter.” Temple Franklin printed the Parable in this form, although with the omission, possibly inadvertent, of a short phrase and with the correction of one misspelling, both in verse 11. As a footnote he quoted the introductory sentence and concluding commentary from Kames’s Sketches.
Preserved in the American Philosophical Society (Franklin Papers, L, 11:1–4, 7), are four translations into French in Franklin’s hand and a fair copy of the last of these by a French clerk with an interlineation by Franklin. Each has fifteen verses and is headed “Chap. XXV.” One (L, 11:1) appears to be an early translation by Franklin, with many corrections and revisions. Most of these he incorporated in a second translation (L, 11:2), which also contains corrections and revisions. This second attempt he endorsed “Exercise No. 7. Abraham corrigée.” The third manuscript (L, 11:3) is textually similar, but not identical, to the second, but the verses are arranged in two columns like a page of a Bible. Its relation to the first two drafts cannot be determined. The fourth translation in Franklin’s hand, also in two columns (L, 11:4) is certainly later than L, 11:2, and probably later than L, 11:3. To the extent that the nature of the textual variations between the Dick and Kames versions permits of determination, all but L, 11:3 are translated from the Dick version, while that one reflects some phraseology of each.
Finally there is an undated French translation entitled “Parobole contre la Persecution, a l’imitation du langage de L’Ecriture,” printed on Franklin’s press at Passy. This is the only copy closely connected with Franklin that is called “Parable against Persecution.” It might be expected that this printing represented the final French text for which Franklin’s draft translations were a preparation. In fact, however, the Passy imprint is a literal rendering, in labored, schoolboy French, graceless, without idiomatic expression. If this translation was made by Franklin, it unquestionably antedates all the other French manuscripts; perhaps it was not made by Franklin at all.
Like many other things that Franklin wrote, including, for example, the Epitaph, the idea of the Parable against Persecution was not wholly original. In 1781 “H.S.” in the Gentleman’s Magazine revealed the parallel between it and a passage in the second edition of Jeremy Taylor’s Discourse on the Liberty of Prophesying. Taylor said he found the story in one of “the Jews’ books.” This was most likely Solomon Ibn Verga’s Historia Judaica (Amsterdam, 1651), translated into Latin by Georgius Gentius, who related it in the dedicatory letter. Gentius in turn had taken the story of Abraham and the Stranger, he said, from the Bustán of the Persian writer Sa’di, another of whose works Gentius had already translated.
The charge of plagiarism made by “H.S.” seems to have elicited little comment and in 1788 a contributor to The Repository of London also drew attention to the parallel between Franklin’s Chapter and the story in Gentius’ dedication. Benjamin Vaughan came to Franklin’s defense in the next issue. Admitting that the “idea” of the Parable was evidently taken from Gentius, Vaughan asserted “that Dr. Franklin’s free version of it has great merit, especially as containing a happy imitation of the scriptural style.” He rejected the charge of plagiarism, pointing out that Franklin’s desire to disseminate “an amiable sentiment … would certainly have been defeated, had he prefixed to the printed copies of the parable, which he was fond of dispersing, an intimation of its author. He therefore gave no name whatever to it, much less his own.” As often as Vaughan had heard him “read” the Parable, he had never heard Franklin claim authorship; “His good humor constantly led him into a train of amusing stories concerning the persons who had mistaken it for scripture, (for he had bound it up as a leaf in his bible, the better to impose upon them,) which, perhaps, made the point of authorship forgotten.”
Franklin was of course unperturbed by the charge. He saw it, and he read and appreciated Vaughan’s defense. “The truth is,” he wrote, “that I never published that Chapter, and never claimed more credit from it, than what related to the style, and the addition of the concluding threatening and promise.” Lord Kames’s publishing of it without his consent had deprived him “of a good deal of amusement, which I used to take in reading it by heart out of my Bible, and obtaining the remarks of the Scriptuarians upon it, which were sometimes very diverting; not but that it is in itself, on account of the importance of its moral, well worth being made known to all mankind.”

Chap. XXVII
1. And it came to pass after these Things, that Abraham sat in the Door of his Tent, about the going down of the Sun.
2. And behold a Man, bowed with Age, came from the Way of the Wilderness, leaning on a Staff.
3. And Abraham arose and met him, and said unto him, Turn in, I pray thee, and wash thy Feet, and tarry all Night, and thou shalt arise early on the Morrow, and go on thy Way.

4. And the Man said, Nay, for I will abide under this Tree.
5. But Abraham pressed him greatly; so he turned, and they went into the Tent; and Abraham baked unleavend Bread, and they did eat.
6. And when Abraham saw that the Man blessed not God, he said unto him, Wherefore dost thou not worship the most high God, Creator of Heaven and Earth?
7. And the Man answered and said, I do not worship the God thou speakest of; neither do I call upon his Name; for I have made to myself a God, which abideth alway in mine House, and provideth me with all Things.
8. And Abraham’s Zeal was kindled against the Man; and he arose, and fell upon him, and drove him forth with Blows into the Wilderness.
9. And at Midnight God called unto Abraham, saying, Abraham, where is the Stranger?
10. And Abraham answered and said, Lord, he would not worship thee, neither would he call upon thy Name; therefore have I driven him out from before my Face into the Wilderness.
11. And God said, Have I born with him these hundred ninety and eight Years, and nourished him, and cloathed him, notwithstanding his Rebellion against me, and couldst not thou, that art thyself a Sinner, bear with him one Night?
12. And Abraham said, Let not the Anger of my Lord wax hot against his Servant. Lo, I have sinned; forgive me, I pray Thee:
13. And Abraham arose and went forth into the Wilderness, and sought diligently for the Man, and found him, and returned with him to his Tent; and when he had entreated him kindly, he sent him away on the Morrow with Gifts.
14. And God spake again unto Abraham, saying, For this thy Sin shall thy Seed be afflicted four Hundred Years in a strange Land:

15. But for thy Repentance will I deliver them; and they shall come forth with Power, and with Gladness of Heart, and with much Substance.
 Endorsed: Doctor Franklins Chapter wrote with his own hand November 1760


Title: A Parable on Brotherly Love, [July 1755]
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To:

In a letter to Benjamin Vaughan, Nov. 2, 1789, Franklin discussed his “Chapter of Abraham and the Stranger” (see immediately above) and then went on to say: “When I wrote that in the form you now have it, I wrote also another, the hint of which was also taken from an ancient Jewish tradition; but, not having the same success with it as the other, I laid it aside, and have not seen it for thirty years past, till within these few days a lady of my acquaintance furnished me with a copy, which she had preserved. I think however it is not a bad one, and send it to you enclosed.” The piece he referred to is almost certainly the one called variously “A Parable on Brotherly Love” and “Chapter of the Ax.” Surviving copies are undated. Some previous editors have dated it 1774, probably by analogy to the version of the Parable against Persecution Lord Kames printed in that year, of which they knew, but Franklin clearly indicated that he had written both pieces at about the same time; hence for lack of further evidence it is printed here immediately following his better-known imitation of the Scriptures.
The lady who enabled Franklin to send a copy to Vaughan was probably the widowed Mary Stevenson Hewson, daughter of Franklin’s London landlady, who had settled in Philadelphia with her children in 1786. Mrs. Hewson had a copy of the Parable, corrected in Franklin’s hand, which remained in her descendants’ possession until 1956. Since this is probably the manuscript from which she made the copy she gave Franklin in 1789, it is the one reproduced here. Another eighteenth-century copy in a clerk’s hand, in the Liverpool Record Office, is almost identical in wording. The minor differences appear to be inadvertent errors in transcription, though in one instance the copyist has written above the line what he may have regarded as an improvement in phraseology and has marked what he first transcribed as: “(original).” Temple Franklin apparently had a different copy, which he printed in 1818 in his edition of his grandfather’s writings. In addition to numerous variations in wording, it omits entirely the last part of the final verse. It is set in the form of nineteen unnumbered paragraphs, the first verse as printed below being divided into two paragraphs. Later editors have all reproduced the Temple Franklin version without change except to number his paragraphs as nineteen verses.
The “ancient Jewish tradition” which provided Franklin the “hint” for this parable derives from the Babylonian Talmud. A passage on the subjects of vengeance and bearing a grudge uses as illustrations almost precisely the same forms of behavior that Simeon and Levi exhibited towards Reuben in Franklin’s composition. In one section of the Code of Maimonides the same warning appears in only slightly different wording, this time using the names “Reuben” and “Simeon” as hypothetical speakers, just as we might use “And Pat said to Mike” in an anecdote today. Maimonides’ use of these names suggests that this passage may have been one intermediate source for Franklin, especially since Georgius Gentius published a Latin translation of that portion of the Code in 1640, thus making it more readily available to Western scholars. Neither the original Talmudic passage nor either of these later renderings is a narrative, but rather a didactic treatment of the theme which underlies Franklin’s parable. Whether this treatment had been rewritten as a story of the sons of Jacob before Franklin learned of it and what his immediate source may have been are questions which remain undetermined. In any case, his composition in imitation of the Scriptures was his own. His insight into the characters and relative status of the brothers and the close relation of his text at several points to particular Biblical passages, as indicated in footnotes below, are evidence, if such be needed, of Franklin’s thorough familiarity with the Old Testament.

1 In those days there was no Worker of Iron in all the Land, And the Merchants of Midian passed by with their Camels, bearing Spices, and Myrrh, and Balm, and Wares of Iron. And Reuben bought an Ax from the Ishmaelite Merchants, which he prized highly, for there were none in his Father’s house.
2 And Simeon said unto Reuben his Brother, lend me I pray thee, thine Ax: But he refused, and would not.
3 And Levi also said unto him, My Brother, lend me thine Ax. And he refused him also.
4 Then came Judah unto Reuben and entreated him, saying, Lo, thou lovest me, and I have always loved thee do not refuse me the use of thine Ax, for I desire it earnestly.
5 But Reuben turned from him, and refused him Likewise.
6 Now it came to pass that Reuben hewed Timber on the Bank of the River, and the Ax fell therein, and he could by no means find it.

7 But Simeon, Levi and Judah, had sent a Mesenger after the Ishmaelites with money and had bought for each of them an Ax also.
8 Then came Reuben unto Simeon, and said unto him, Lo, I have lost mine Ax, and my work is unfinished, lend me thine I pray thee.
9 And Simeon answered, saying, Thou wouldst not lend me thine Ax, therefore will I not lend thee mine.
10 Then went he unto Levi, and said unto him, My Brother, thou knowest my Loss and my Necessity; lend me, I pray thee, thine Ax.
11 And Levi reproached him, saying, Thou wouldest not lend me thine when I desired it, but I will be better than thee, and will lend thee mine.
12 And Reuben was grieved at the Rebuke of Levi; and being ashamed, turned from him, and took not the Ax; but sought his Brother Judah.
13 And as he drew near, Judah beheld his Countenance as it were confused with Grief and shame; and he prevented him, saying, My Brother, I know thy Loss, but why should it grieve thee? Lo, have I not an Ax that will serve both thee and me? take it I pray thee, and use it as thine own.
14 And Reuben fell on his Neck, and kissed him with Tears, saying, Thy Kindness is great, but thy Goodness in forgiving me is greater. Lo thou art indeed a Brother, and whilst I live will I surely love thee.
15 And Judah said, Let us also love our other Brethren; Behold, are we not all of one Blood.

16 And Joseph saw these Things, and reported them to his Father Jacob.
17 And Jacob said, Reuben did wrong but he repented, Simeon also did wrong, and Levi was not altogether blameless.
18 But the Heart of Judah is princely. Judah hath the Soul of a King. His Fathers Children shall bow down before him, and he shall rule over his Brethren, nor shall the Sceptre depart from his house, nor a Lawgiver from between his Feet, until Shiloh come.


Title: From Benjamin Franklin to Richard Peters, [c. 1 August 1755]
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To: Peters, Richard

Sir
[c. August 1, 1755]
The House is not yet together: But the Speaker and a Number of the Members are of Opinion that a Common Messenger will be sufficient to carry the Letters; and are not inclin’d that any Gentlemen should be charg’d with them in Behalf of the Publick. They hope the Colonel does not mean to come to Philadelphia but only into this Province, to be near the Magazine at Shippensburgh, &c. Your humble Servant
B Franklin
I should be glad of an Opportunity of sending a Line by the Messenger.
 Addressed: To / Richd Peters Esqr
Endorsed: Ben: Franklyn Augt 1755