Title: The Captivity of William Henry, 23–28 June 1768
From:
To:

The following essay poses a problem of authorship that cannot be conclusively solved. The essay itself is almost beyond doubt a hoax. Its ostensible purpose is to introduce the reader to a book which, insofar as negative evidence can be trusted, was never written. Its real purpose is to poke fun at the white man and to a lesser degree at the Indian. This purpose limits the range of authors who could have written it, but does not help to determine who the writer was.
Although Franklin is an obvious possibility, no direct evidence points to him. The “Captivity” is not mentioned in his correspondence and has not been printed in any previous edition of his works. The first tentative suggestion that he might have been the author came from James R. Masterson in 1938, and the first positive attribution was made in 1950 by Alfred O. Aldridge. The case for Franklin’s authorship rests on five main points. (1) The myth in the “Captivity” about the origin of corn, beans, and tobacco was included in Gottfried Achenwall’s Observations on North America, for which Franklin supplied the information in an interview in 1766. (2) Franklin sent the essay, along with other articles that he unquestionably wrote himself, to his friend Barbeu-Dubourg, who in 1769 had the “Captivity” published in French in the Ephémérides. (3) Franklin included the corn myth in his “Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America” in 1784, where the myth varies in detail from the earlier form but has many verbal resemblances; his aversion to plagiarizing from other authors suggests that in the “Remarks” he was revising his own handiwork of sixteen years before. (4) The gently ironic handling of both Christian and deistic orthodoxy, the use of realistic details for verisimilitude, and the fact that the “Captivity” was the kind of hoax of which Franklin was fond all strengthen the probability that he was the author. (5) Among his papers is an undated fragment in his hand, which is so close in style and content to the “Captivity” that it might be considered as one of several parts of the draft that were deleted before publication, and can even, as indicated below, be assigned a conjectural place in the original. The fragment and the essay both deal with a white man living among the Indians, and a character appears in both under the same name.
These five points are not completely convincing, because arguments can be made against all of them. (1) Achenwall’s version of the corn myth is the barest sketch; the version in the “Captivity” is much more elaborate, and differs in important details and in its setting. (2) Franklin sent Dubourg the work of others, notably Dickinson’s Farmer’s Letters; his sending this essay is therefore no proof of his authorship. (3) He was certainly familiar with the “Captivity” when it first appeared, and he could have remembered it for sixteen years, or even kept a copy with him, and reproduced it in different form in his “Remarks”; the fact that he is not known to have plagiarized may be indicative, but does not preclude his having done so in this case. (4) Generalizations about his irony and use of detail and fondness for hoaxes are in considerable measure subjective, and can be balanced by other generalizations-that the author’s irony, which in some places is almost too subtle and indirect for English readers, is quite unlike the sharpness of Franklin’s early “Silence Dogood Letters” or his later “Edict of the King of Prussia.” (5) The fragment in Franklin’s hand proves only that he was intrigued by fictional Indians. It is perhaps something that he copied, for reasons and at a time unknown. Even if he composed it himself, it may be an unrelated bit of whimsy; the supposition that it was part of a long draft that was later condensed rests on no evidence at all, and the reader must judge, from the fragment as inserted in the text, whether it seems to belong there.
The “Captivity,” it may fairly be said in summary, does not bear clear hallmarks of Franklin’s handiwork. But, if he did not write it, who else could have? It reveals considerable familiarity with the ways and lore of the Five Nations and with the attitude of white traders toward them; it also contains some details that would have been far from common knowledge at the time it was written. The person most likely to have had the requisite information was either Franklin himself or some one close to him, perhaps one of his associates in the Club of Honest Whigs to whom he contributed the material. This hypothesis, that the essay is the product of one man’s knowledge and another man’s pen, would explain why it lacks the sharpness of Franklin’s usual satire. The explanation has one serious drawback, however, which is that he would have been far more likely to use his own ideas than to put them at the service of another.
If the author was not Franklin, alone or with a collaborator, it must have been some one with an odd assortment of information. For the only element of the “Captivity” that is in any sense factual is one of the leading characters, Canassatego; he was a real person, though he has suffered a sea change in the story, and he died five years before William Henry’s supposed capture. The implication is that whoever wrote the essay drew his material from much earlier works, supplemented by Achenwall’s brief mention of the corn myth in the first edition of his Observations, published in German in 1767. Does this conjectural reconstruction of sources, assuming that it is correct, point to any one as author?
The most plausible candidate is Johann Reinhold Forster. He was a German naturalist and nonconformist minister, who had come to England in 1766. After two years of teaching at the dissenters’ academy at Warrington in Lancashire, he and his son went to London in 1768 and devoted themselves to translating Peter Kalm’s account of his travels in North America; their English edition appeared in 1770. Although the elder Forster was elected to the Royal Society in 1767, there is no direct evidence that he knew Franklin before the latter part of 1771. In the preface to his final volume, however, Forster acknowledges the help of a “worthy friend and benefactor” in pointing out errors in Kalm; and one of these corrections requires precise knowledge of Pennsylvania in the 1760’s. All that can be said is that he may have been in touch with Franklin at the time the “Captivity” was written, that his experience equipped him to compose its few references to an English background, that he may have read the German edition of Achenwall and derived the corn myth from it (with embellishments of his own), and that he certainly had, from his work on Kalm, the requisite knowledge of Indian lore. If Franklin was not himself the author, Forster is the most likely one.
Yet subjective considerations cannot be ignored, and they point away from Forster. In the first place his prose was polished, with balanced phrases and sonorous rhythms, and has little resemblance to that of the “Captivity.” In the second place he was endowed with what Matthew Arnold called “high seriousness,” and seems to have lacked entirely the playfulness of this hoax. It is impossible to say that he could not have written it, because he may have had his lighter moments; but it is certainly much more out of character with his other work than it is with Franklin’s.
The case for Franklin as author rests, in short, upon various bits of evidence. In our opinion the most important are the two other versions of the corn myth, Achenwall’s in 1766 and Franklin’s in 1784; the translation of the essay in the Ephémérides; the surviving fragment on Indians in Franklin’s hand; and-negative evidence, admittedly-the unlikelihood that any one else in England at the time, with the possible but improbable exception of Forster, could have been the author. These points in sum are persuasive; they are not conclusive. But Franklin presumably would not have been chagrined to have the essay attributed to him. We are doing so, in accordance with our policy in such doubtful cases, with a question mark.
Extract from an Account of the Captivity of William Henry in 1755, and of his Residence among the Senneka Indians six Years and seven Months till he made his Escape from them. Printed at Boston, 1766. 4to, Pages 160.
This Writer, who is an Englishman, gives a plain short account of his education in human learning at an academy in Northampton; his settlement in America as a trader with the Ohio Indians; his being surpriz’d and made a prisoner at the breaking out of the late war; his spiritual change or conversion during his sickness and other afflictions; and then among a multitude of other particulars, relating to the Indians, says,
“I had always a facility in learning languages, and the pains I took, after my adoption, to acquire theirs, with the proficiency I soon made in it, ingratiated me a good deal with the Indians, so that in this third year I found myself much respected. Old Canassatego,  a Warrior, Counsellor, and the chief man of our village, used to come frequently to smoke and talk with me, while I work’d at my new business; and many of the younger men would come and sit with him, pleased to hear our conversations. As he saw I was curious on that head, he took a good deal of pains to instruct me in the principles of their eloquence, an art (it may seem strange to say it, but it is strictly true) carried much higher among these Savages than it is now in any part of Europe, as it is their only polite art, as they practise it from their infancy, as every thing of consequence is transacted in councils, and all the force of their government consists in persuasion. He would also often enquire of me concerning our wars, history, customs, arts, &c. and sometimes about our religious opinions. I then regretted that I had so unhappily refused the advantage once in my power, of acquiring store of divine knowledge under the pious instructions of Dr. Doddridge, which my friends of all things wish’d, intending me for the ministry; but my mind was extremely averse to it, and I had abruptly left him against their advice; which obstinacy of mine was the beginning of my misfortunes.
[Fragment in Franklin’s hand:]
I now conceiv’d however, that I might, if I could get the Bible I had so long expected, do some Good among them; and I thought if I could but bring one of these poor dark Souls to the Knowledge of God and Faith in Jesus Christ, it might plead something for me towards obtaining Forgiveness for my past Transgressions, and the Follies of a Life so far misspent. Alaguippy, as I said before,  had promis’d to engage an Albany Handler he us’d to meet near Lake Oneida, to bring me one. I had given him a Note for that purpose to shew the Trader. But between them it was neglected, and I did not get it till near 19 Months after. It came however at length, and glad I was to receive it, tho’ the unconscionable Handler made Alaguippy, as he assur’d me, pay 8 Buckskins and 3 Beavers for it, when it certainly did not cost above 3 or 4 Shillings Sterling at New York. Indeed, says Alaguippy, I should not have given so much for it, but you know you told me it was the best Thing in the World. This and other Impositions I suffer’d from the Handlers while I liv’d as an Indian among the Indians, serv’d to make me see in a stronger Light the Enormity of my own Conduct [missing; fragment ends here]. But enough of that.”
The Writer then goes on to relate sundry conversations he had at different times with the Indians, on religious subjects, occasioned by his acquainting them with parts of our scripture history. These we pass over, as containing little entertainment or information, except the following, by which we may learn how imperfect the Indian ideas are of God, what partial notions they have of the creation, and how widely different from ours their opinions are of those regulations of commerce, by which one nation proposes to make advantage to itself in distressing the trade of others. The Europeans think such regulations wise and good; the Indians, it seems, think them the highest folly and wickedness.
“While I was musing in what manner best to explain this matter to his understanding, Konnedohaga, the young Warrior, took up the discourse, and said, You tell us that the great Manitta made all things in the first six days. I find we know some things that you do not know. Your book does not tell you every thing. At least if your Manitta made all the things of your country in the first six days, it was not so in this Indian country; for some things were not made till many generations after, and they were made by our Manitta’s Daughter. I will tell you, says he, how it happened, as I learnt it when I last hunted among the Oneidas. Nine Oneida Warriors passing near a certain hill, not far from the head of Susquehannah,  saw a most beautiful young Woman descend naked from the clouds, and seat herself on the ground upon that hill. Then they said, this is the great Manitta’s Daughter, let us go to her, welcome her into our country, and present her some of our venison. They gave her a fawn’s tongue broiled, which she eat, and thanking them, said, come to this place again after twelve moons, and you will find, where I now sit, some things that you have never yet seen, and that will do you good. So saying she put her hands on the ground, arose, went up into the cloud, and left them. They came accordingly after twelve moons, and found growing, where she had pressed the ground with her right hand, corn,  where with her left hand, beans; and where her back parts had pressed it, there grew tobacco. At this origin of tobacco, all the young Indians laughed; but old Canassatego, reproving them and the teller of the story, said, you are a young man, or you would not have told before this white man such a story. It is a foolish Oneida tale. If you tell him such tales, what can you expect but to make him laugh at our Indian stories as much as you sometimes do at his? Hearken to me, I will tell you and him all the true story of the beginning of this country, and the making of all things in it; such as I long since learnt it from my mother, who had it from her mother, and so on backwards for a hundred generations.
When we had sat silent a few minutes, he said, white man, hearken to me, hear me Coseagon! You say there is but one great good Manitta. You know of no more. If there were but one, how unhappy must he be, without friends, without companions, and without that equality in conversation, by which pleasure is mutually given and received! I tell you there are more than a hundred of them; they live in the sun and in the moon; they love one another as brethren; they visit and converse with each other; and they sometimes visit, though they do not often converse with us. Every country has its great good Manitta, who first peopled that country. I am now going to tell you how my country was made and peopled.
Then raising his voice, and entering into the council stile and manner of speaking, and with that modulation which I may call the quoting tone, being what they use when repeating messages, treaties, or any thing that has been said by others in former times, distant places, or preceding councils; a tone so particular, that if you come into a council in the middle of a speech, you can tell whether the person speaking is delivering his own sentiments, or reciting those of another; this tone having the same effect in their speeches, and answering nearly the same end, with our marginal inverted comma’s in writing, to distinguish borrow’d passages quoted as authorities; only that the Indians have three differences in the quoting tone, none of which we have in writing, viz. the approving accent, the disapproving, and the uncertain or doubting; and that there is something measured or musical in all these tones. I say, Canasseteego, in the quoting or historical tone, with the approving accent, and with an air of great authority and dignity, went on with his account of the manner in which his country was made and peopled. …
’When our good Manitta raised Akanishionegy out of the great waters, he said to his brethren, how fine a country is this! I will make red men,  the best of men, to enjoy it. Then with five handfuls of red seeds, like the eggs of flies, did he strow the fertile fields of Onondaga. Little worms came out of the seeds, and penetrated the earth, where the spirits who had never yet seen the light entred into and united with them. Manitta watered the earth with his rain, the sun warmed it, the worms with the spirits in them grew, putting forth little arms and legs, and moved the light earth that covered them. After nine moons they came forth perfect boys and girls. Manitta covered them with his mantle of warm purple cloud, and nourished them with milk from his fingers ends. Nine summers did he nurse them, and nine summers more did he instruct them how to live. In the mean time he had made for their use trees, plants and animals of various kinds. Akanishionegy was covered with woods, and filled with creatures. Then he assembled his children together and said, Ye are Five Nations, for ye sprang each from a different handful of the seed I sowed; but ye are all brethren, and I am your father, for I made ye all, I have nursed and brought you up: Mohocks, I have made you bold and valiant, and see, I give you corn for your food: Oneidas, I have made you patient of pain and of hunger, the nuts and fruits of the trees are yours: Sennekers, I have made you industrious and active, beans do I give you for nourishment: Cayugas, I have made you strong, friendly and generous, ground nuts and every root shall refresh you: Onondagoes, I have made you wise, just and eloquent; squashes and grapes have I given you to eat, and tobacco to smoak in council. The beasts, birds and fishes have I given to you all in common. As I have loved and taken care of you all, so do you love and take care of one another. Communicate freely to each other the good things I have given you, and learn to imitate each others virtues. I have made you the best people in the world, and I give you the best country. You will defend it from the invasions of other Nations, from the children of other Manitta’s, and keep possession of it for your selves while the sun and moon give light, and the waters run in the rivers. This you shall do, if you observe my words. Spirits, I am now about to leave you. The bodies I have given you will in time grow old and wear out, so that you will be weary of them; or from various accidents they may become unfit for your habitation, and you will leave them. I cannot remain here always to give you new ones. I have great affairs to mind in distant places, and I cannot again attend so long to the nursing of children: I have enabled you therefore, among your selves, to produce new bodies, to supply the place of old ones, that every one of you when he parts with his old habitation may in due time find a new one, and never wander longer than he chuses under the earth, deprived of the light of the sun. Nourish and instruct your children as I have nourished and instructed you. Be just to all men, and kind to strangers that come among you. So shall you be happy, and beloved by all: and I myself will sometimes visit and assist you. Saying this, he wrapped himself in a bright cloud, and went like a swift arrow to the sun, where his brethren rejoiced at his return. From thence he often looked at Akanishionegy, and pointing shewed with pleasure to his brothers the country he had formed, and the nations he had produced to inhabit it.
Here the five nations lived long and happily, communicating freely to each other as their wants required, all the good things that had been given them; and generations had succeeded generations, when the great evil Manitta came among them, and put evil thoughts into their hearts. Then the Mohocks said, We abound in corn which our brothers have not; let us oblige them to give us a great deal of fruits, beans, roots, squashes, and tobacco, for a very little corn; so shall we live in idleness and plenty, while they labour and live hardly. And in the same manner spoke the other nations. Hence arose discord, animosity, and hatred; insomuch that they were on the point of lifting the hatchet against each other, and miring the earth with brother’s blood. Their Father saw this from the sun, and was angry with his children: A thick blue and red cloud covered all the land, and he spoke to them in thunder; Wretches, said he, did I not freely give to each of you different kinds of good things, and those in plenty, that each might have something in his power to contribute to his brother’s happiness, and so increase the happiness and strengthen the union of the whole; and do you now abuse those gifts to oppress each other; and would one brother, to make himself in imagination more happy, make four brethren in reality more miserable! Ye are become unworthy of the goodness I have shewn you, and shall no longer enjoy my favours. Then the sun of Akanishionegy gave forth darkness instead of light; so that the day was darker than the night; the rivers ran backwards to the mountains, and, with all their fish, re-entered the fountains from whence they sprung, forsaking their ancient beds, and leaving dry the banks they used to water. The clouds witheld their rain, and carried it away to other regions. The surface of the earth became dust; whirlwinds filled the air with it, and every breathing creature was almost stifled; every green thing withered; the birds flew away; the beasts ran out of the country; and last of all the afflicted people famished nearly to death, their dry eyes not having even a tear left, departed sorrowing, and were scattered among the neighbouring nations, begging every where for food from those who despised them for their late wickedness to one another.
Nine summers passed away, and their distress continued. Then the evil spirit left them, for they no longer listened to his counsels: they began mutually to feel and to pity one anothers misfortunes; they began to love and to help each other. The nations among whom they were scattered now began to esteem them, and offered to adopt and incorporate them among themselves: But they said, No, we are still a people, we chuse to continue a people; perhaps our great Manitta will restore us to our country, and we will then remember this your offered kindness. The great Manitta seeing their hearts changed, looked on them with compassion: He spoke, and the sun again gave light; the rivers came again forth from the fountains, and ran rejoicing through the delighted valleys; the clouds again showered on the thirsty earth; the trees and plants renewed their verdure; the birds and beasts returned to the forests; and the five nations, with glad and thankful hearts, went back to repossess their ancient seats. From that time down to the present day, it has been an inviolable rule and custom among the nations, that every Brother is welcome to what a Brother can spare of the good things which the great spirit has caused to spring for him out of the earth.’
All the Indians applauded Canassatego, and said they had heard that good story often, but never before so well repeated. Indeed however absurd and false in its facts, it was admirably expressed and deliver’d. In my account of it, I have been obliged to drop many of the figures, which being unusual to us, would require long explanations; and I must own I think it scarce possible in our language (I am sure it is impossible for me) to do Indian eloquence justice. Canassatego, then made some remarks himself on the story; and told us that the English and French, though they called the Indians brothers, had long practised the same wickedness towards them, making every thing dear that they exchanged with them, and even the things they the English and French exchanged with one another. ‘Corlaer,  says he, first makes Onontio pay dearer for strouds and blankets; then Onontio makes Corlaer pay as much dearer for beaver; what, at best, can either of them get by this, but his own inconvenience and the other’s ill-will? But this is not all. It is for these causes that the great spirit of the white people is now angry with them, and has left them to lift the hatchet, brother against brother, to destroy their own habitations, and bring misery on both their countries.’
I could not let all this pass without modestly remarking that his account of the beginning of things was subject to great uncertainty, as being trusted to memory only, from woman to woman, through so many generations, and might have been greatly altered; whereas the account I gave them was written down by direction of the great spirit himself, and preserved carefully in a book, which was never altered, but had ever remained the same, and was undoubtedly, the truth. Coseagon, says Canassatego, you are yet almost as rude as when you first came among us. When young, it seems you were not well taught, you did not learn the civil behaviour of men. We excused you: it was the fault of your instructors. But why have you not more improved, since you have long had the opportunity from our example? You see I always believed your stories, why do you not believe mine? Alaguippy and the other Indians kindly made some apology for me, saying I should be wiser in time; and they concluded with an observation which they thought very polite and respectful towards me, that my stories indeed might be best for white people, but Indian stories were undoubtedly best for Indians.
Now it is well known that some who have before me been among these Indians, have reported highly of their stories, as if there were something super-excellent in them. I have therefore given this story of theirs at full length translated as well as I am able; and I can faithfully assure my readers it is one of their very best, by which may be seen the miserable darkness these poor creatures labour under, and how far inferior their best instructions do appear when compared with the unerring oracles that we possess, and the histories contained in them.”


Title: From Benjamin Franklin to Grey Cooper, 24 June 1768
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To: Cooper, Sir Grey

Dear Sir
Saturday June 24. 1768
Inclos’d I send, for the Ladies, a Piece of the Bark Cloth with which the new-discover’d People dress themselves. It was fast together, but I have split it, as you see; and it will still split farther into its original thin Pieces like Lace.
You once express’d a little Partiality for Things of my Writing, which encourages me to send you two; one to which you have a kind of Right, it being written under your Roof in favour of the Treasury, to discountenance, among honest People, the Practice of Smuggling or using contraband Goods. The other was intended to lessen the Effect of the late numerous inflammatory Papers on the Minds of the labouring Poor. They may show at least that the Writer wishes well to Government and Order.
I attended at the Duke of Graftons yesterday Morning at ½ after Ten, agreable to your kind Note. His Grace being very busy, referr’d me to Tuesday next at 12 o’Clock, to be then at the Treasury. I am extreamly sensible of your Friendship, and of the Dukes Goodness in thinking of me. With sincere Esteem, I am, Yours affectionately
B Franklin

Addressed: To / Grey Cooper Esqr / Treasury
  Endorsed: 1768  Dr. B. Francklin


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from James Parker, 29 June 1768: résumé
From: Parker, James
To: Franklin, Benjamin

[Dated June 29, 1768, this is virtually a duplicate of Parker’s letter of May 14.]


Title: From Benjamin Franklin to Joseph Galloway, 2 July 1768
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To: Galloway, Joseph

Dear Sir,
London, July 2, 1768.
Since my last nothing material has occurred here relating to American affairs, except the removal of Lord Clare from the head of the Board of Trade to the Treasury of Ireland, and the return of Lord Hillsborough to the Board of Trade as first Commissioner, retaining the title and powers of Secretary of State for the colonies. This change was very sudden and unexpected. My Lord Clare took me home from Court to dine with him but two days before, saying he should be without other company, and wanted to talk with me on sundry American businesses. We had accordingly a good deal of conversation on our affairs, in which he seemed to interest himself with all the attention that could be supposed in a minister who expected to continue in the management of them. This was on Sunday, and on the Tuesday following he was removed. Whether my Lord Hillsborough’s administration will be more stable than others have been for a long time is quite uncertain; but as his inclinations are rather favourable towards us (so far as he thinks consistent with what he supposes the unquestionable rights of Britain), I cannot but wish it may continue, especially as these perpetual mutations prevent the progress of all business.
But another change is now talked of that gives me great uneasiness. Several of the Bedford party being now got in, it has been for some time apprehended that they would sooner or later draw their friend Mr. Grenville in after them. It is now said, he is to be Secretary of State in the room of Lord Shelburne. If this should take place, or if in any other shape he comes again into power, I fear his sentiments of the Americans and theirs of him, will occasion such clashings as may be attended with fatal consequences. The last accounts from your part of the world of the combinations relating to commerce with this country, and resolutions concerning the duties here laid upon it, occasion much serious reflection, and ’tis thought the points in dispute between the two countries will not fail to come under the consideration of parliament early in next session. Our friends wonder that I persist in my intention of returning this summer, alledging that I might be of much more service to my country here than I can be there, and wishing me by all means to stay the ensuing winter, as the presence of persons well acquainted with America, and of ability to represent these affairs in a proper light, will then be highly necessary. My private concerns, however, so much require my presence at home, that I have not yet suffered myself to be persuaded by their partial opinion of me.
The tumults and disorders that prevailed here lately have now pretty well subsided. Wilkes’s outlawry is reversed, but he is sentenced to twenty-two months imprisonment, and £1000 fine, which his friends, who feared he would be pilloried, seem rather satisfied with. The importation of corn, a pretty good hay harvest, now near over, and the prospect of plenty from a fine crop of wheat makes the poor more patient, in hopes of an abatement in the price of provisions; so that unless want of employment by the failure of American orders should distress them, they are like to be tolerably quiet.

I purpose writing to you again by the packet that goes next Saturday, and therefore now only add that I am, with sincere esteem, dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
B. Franklin.


Title: From Benjamin Franklin to John Winthrop, 2 July 1768
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To: Winthrop, John

Dear Sir,
London, July 2, 1768.
You must needs think the time long that your instruments have been in hand. Sundry circumstances have occasioned the delay. Mr. Short,  who undertook to make the telescope, was long in a bad state of health, and much in the country for the benefit of the air. He however at length finished the material parts that required his own hand, and waited only for something about the mounting that was to have been done by another workman; when he was removed by death. I have put in my claim to the instrument, and shall obtain it from the executors as soon as his affairs can be settled. It is now become much more valuable than it would have been if he had lived, as he excelled all others in that branch. The price agreed for was £100.
The equal altitudes and transit instrument was undertaken by Mr. Bird, who doing all his work with his own hands for the sake of greater truth and exactness, one must have patience that expects any thing from him. He is so singularly eminent in his way, that the commissioners of longitude have lately given him £500 merely to discover and make public his method of dividing instruments. I send it you herewith. But what has made him longer in producing your instrument is, the great and hasty demand on him from France and Russia, and our society here for instruments to go to different parts of the world for observing the next transit of Venus; some to be used in Siberia, some for the observers that go to the South Seas, some for those that go to Hudson’s Bay. These are now all completed and mostly gone, it being necessary on account of the distance, that they should go this year to be ready on the spot in time. And now he tells me he can finish yours, and that I shall have it next week. Possibly he may keep his word. But we are not to wonder if he does not.
Mr. Martin, when I called to see his panopticon, had not one ready; but was to let me know when he should have one to show me. I have not since heard from him, but will call again.
Mr. Maskelyne wishes much that some of the governments in North America would send an astronomer to Lake Superior to observe this transit. I know no one of them likely to have a spirit for such an undertaking, unless it be the Massachusetts, or that have a person and instruments suitable. He presents you one of his pamphlets, which I now send you, together with two letters from him to me, relating to that observation. If your health and strength were sufficient for such an expedition, I should be glad to hear you had undertaken it. Possibly you may have an élève that is capable. The fitting you out to observe the former transit, was a public act for the benefit of science that did your province great honor.

We expect soon a new volume of the transactions, in which your piece will be printed. I have not yet got the separate ones which I ordered.
It is perhaps not so extraordinary that unlearned men, such as commonly compose our church vestries, should not yet be acquainted with, and sensible of the benefit of metal conductors, in averting the stroke of lightning, and preserving our houses from its violent effects; or that they should be still prejudiced against the use of such conductors, when we see how long even philosophers, men of extensive science and great ingenuity, can hold out against the evidence of new knowledge that does not square with their preconceptions, and how long men can retain a practice that is conformable to their prejudices, and expect a benefit from such practice, though constant experience shows its inutility. A late piece of the Abbé Nollet, printed last year in the Memoirs of the French Academy of Sciences,  affords strong instances of this; for though the very relations he gives of the effects of lightning in several churches and other buildings, shows clearly that it was conducted from one part to another by wires, gildings, or other pieces of metal that were within, or connected with the building; yet in the same paper he objects to the providing metalline conductors without the building, as useless or dangerous. He cautions people not to ring the church bells during a thunder storm, lest the lightning in its way to the earth should be conducted down to them by the bell-ropes,  which are but bad conductors; and yet is against fixing rods on the outside of the steeple, which are known to be much better conductors, and which it would certainly choose to pass in, rather than in dry hemp. And though for a thousand years past bells have been consecrated by priests of the Romish church,  in expectation that the sound of such blessed bells would drive away those storms, and secure our buildings from the stroke of lightning; and during so long a period it has not been found by experience that places within the reach of such blessed sound are safer than others where it is never heard; but that on the contrary, the lightning seems to strike steeples of choice, and that at the very time the bells are ringing; yet still they continue to bless the new bells and jangle the old ones whenever it thunders. One would think it was now time to try some other trick; and ours is recommended, (nothwithstanding what this able philosopher says, ) by more than twelve years’ experience, wherein, among the great number of houses furnished with iron rods in North America, not one so guarded has been materially hurt with lightning, several have been evidently preserved by their means; while a number of houses, churches, barns, ships, &c. in different places, unprovided with rods, have been struck and greatly damaged, demolished or burnt. Probably the vestries of our English churches are not well acquainted with these facts; otherwise, since as protestants, they have no faith in the blessing of bells, they would be less excusable in not providing this other security for their respective churches, (more exposed than common buildings by their greater height, ) and for the good people that may happen to be assembled in them during a tempest.
I have nothing new in the philosophical way to communicate to you, unless what follows may be such. When I was last year in Germany, I met with a glass, being a tube about eight inches long, half an inch in diameter, with a hollow ball of near an inch diameter at one end, and one of near an inch and a half at the other, hermetically sealed, and half filled with water. If one end is held in the hand, and the other a little elevated above the level, a constant succession of large bubbles proceeds from the end in the hand to the other hand, and make an appearance that puzzled me much, till I found that the space not filled with water was also free from air; and either filled with a subtil invisible vapor continually rising from the water, and extremely rarefiable by the least heat at one end, and condensable again by the least cold at the other; or it is the very fluid of fire itself, which parting from the hand, pervades the glass, and by its expansive force depresses the water till it can pass between it and the glass, and escape to the other end, where it gets through the glass again into the air. I am rather inclined to the first opinion, but doubtful between the two. An ingenious artist here, Mr. Nairne, has made a number of them from mine, and improved them; for his are much more sensible than those I brought from Germany. I bored a very small hole through the wainscot in the seat of my window, through which a little cold air constantly entered, while the air in the room was kept warmer by fires daily made in it, being winter time. I placed one of his glasses with the elevated end against this hole, and the bubbles from the other end, which was in a warmer situation, were continually passing day and night, to the no small surprise of philosophical spectators. Each bubble discharged is larger than that from which it proceeds, and yet that is not diminished; and by adding itself to the bubble at the other end, that bubble is not increased, which seems very paradoxical. When the balls at each end are made large, and the connecting tube very small and bent at right angles, so that the balls, instead of being at the ends, may be brought on the side of the tube, and the tube is held so as that the balls are above it, the water will be depressed in that which is held in the hand, and rise in the other as a jet or fountain; when it is all in the other it begins to boil, as it were, by the vapor passing up through it; and the instant it begins to boil a sudden coldness is felt in the ball held; a curious experiment first observed and shown me by Mr. Nairne, similar to the old observation, I think of Aristotle, that the bottom of the boiling pot is not warm; and may help to explain that fact, if indeed it is a fact. When the water stands at an equal height in both these balls, and all is at rest, if you wet one of the balls by means of a feather dipped in spirit, though the spirit is of the same temperament as to heat and cold as the water in the glass, yet the cold occasioned by the evaporation of the spirit from the wetted ball will so condense the vapor over the water contained in that ball, as that the water of the other ball will be pressed up into it, followed by a succession of bubbles, till the spirit is all dried away. I think the observations on these little instruments may suggest and be applied to some beneficial uses. It has been thought that water reduced to vapor by heat, was rarefied only 14, 000 times, and on this principle our engines for raising water by fire are said to be constructed; but if the vapor so much rarefied from water is capable of being itself still farther rarefied to a boundless degree by the application of heat to the vessels, or parts of vessels, containing the vapor, (as at first it is applied to those containing the water, ) perhaps a much greater power may be obtained with little additional expense. I think, too, that the power of easily moving water from one end to the other of a moveable beam, suspended in the middle by a small degree of heat, may be applied advantageously to some other mechanical purposes.
The magic square and circle, I am told, have occasioned a good deal of puzzling among the mathematicians here, but no one has desired me to show him my method of disposing the numbers. It seems they wish rather to investigate it themselves. When I have the pleasure of seeing you I will communicate it. With singular esteem and respect, I am, dear sir, your most obedient humble servant,
B. Franklin.


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from Richard Huck, 9 July 1768: résumé
From: Huck, Richard
To: Franklin, Benjamin

[Saturday, July 9 (1768?). A dinner invitation from Dr. Huck for Friday next at four o’clock.]


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from James Parker, 12 July 1768
From: Parker, James
To: Franklin, Benjamin

Honoured Sir
Newyork. July 12. 1768
I still continue to send you a Line or two on the Presumption you may possibly not have left England before this reaches you, and if you should be set out the Loss of this is not much: As I have little more to say than I have wrote, only that we continue still in the Old Way, rubbing through a World, in which some slide easier then others, but in which none Stick: And that I think I have got almost to the End of my Journey, I am nevertheless with respectful Compliments Your most obliged Servant
James Parker.

PS By Mr. F’s Order, I send with this Vessel, a Bill to his Brother for £106 Sterling on the P.O. Account, supposing you to be set out for Home.

  J P.

Addressed: For / Dr. Benjamin Franklin / Craven Street / London / per Capt. Berton
Endorsed: M. Parker


Title: From Benjamin Franklin to Mary Stevenson, 20 July 1768: phonetic spelling and transcription
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To: Hewson, Mary (Polly) Stevenson

Many writers, from the monk Orm in the early thirteenth century to George Bernard Shaw in the early twentieth, have experimented with methods of phonetic spelling. It was perhaps natural that Franklin, with his long exposure to the printed word and his varied and practical interests, should have been drawn into this company, and only surprising that he was in his sixties before he began his experimentation. The letter to Polly Stevenson that follows is his earliest known use of his new alphabet, and contains his clearest explanation of why he felt the need for one. Because the letter itself is anything but clear, at least at first glance, it is accompanied by a transcription.
At the same time Franklin sent Polly, as he mentions, some papers and a copy of his alphabet. The papers, not printed here, are all in the new orthography: quotations from the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, Addison’s Campaign, etc., and a word list that might have been the first small step in composing a dictionary. An alphabet that is presumably the one he enclosed, and his explanations and comments upon it, follow the letter.

Diir Pali,
Ritshmyind, Dshulyii 20.–68
Yii intended to hev sent iu dhiz Pepers sunyir, byit biing bizi fargat it.
Mr Kolman hez mended deeli: byit iur gud Myidhyir hez bin indispoz’d uith e slyiit Fivyir, atended uith myitsh fiibilnes and uirines. Shi uiuld nat allau mi to send iu uyird av it at dhi tyiim, and iz nau beter.
Yii uish iu to kansider dhis Alfabet, and giv mi Instanses af syitsh Inglish Uyirds and Saunds az iu mee think kannat perfektlyii bi eksprest byii it. Yii am persueeded it mee bi kamplited byii iur help. Dhi greeter difikyilti uil bi to bring it into ius. Hauevyir, if Amendments eer nevyir atemted, and things kantinu to gro uyirs and uyirs, dhee myist kyim to bi in a retshed Kandishyin at last; syitsh indiid yii think aur Alfabet and Ryiiting alredi in; byit if ui go an az ui hev dyin e fiu Senturiz langer, aur uyirds uil graduali siis to ekspres Saunds, dhee uil onli stand far things, az dhi rittin uyirds du in dhi Tshuiniiz Languadsh, huitsh yii syispekt myiit oridshinali hev bin e litiral Ryiiting lyiik dhat af Iurop, byit thru dhi Tsheendshez in Pronyisieshyin braat an byii dhi Kors af Eedshes, and thru dhi abstinet Adhirens af dhat Pipil to old Kyistyims and amying yidhyirs to dheer old manyir ov Ryiiting, dhi oridshinal Saunds af Leters and Uyirds eer last, and no langyir kansidered. Yii am, myii diir Frend, Iurz afekshyinetli,
B. Franklin

Dear Polly,
Richmond, July 20.—68
I intended to have sent you these Papers sooner, but being busy forgot it.
Mr. Coleman has mended daily; but your good Mother has been  indispos’d with a slight Fever, attended with much feebleness and weariness. She would not allow me to send you word of it at the time and is now better.
I wish you to consider this Alphabet, and give me Instances of such English Words and Sounds as you may think can not perfectly be expressed by it. I am persuaded it may be completed by your help. The greater difficulty will be to bring it into use. However, if Amendments are never attempted and things continue to grow worse and worse they must come to be in a wretched Condition at last; such indeed I think our Alphabet and Writing already in; but if we go on as we have done a few Centuries longer, our words will gradually cease to express Sounds, they will only stand for things, as the written words do in the Chinese Language, which I suspect might originally have been a literal Writing like that of Europe, but through the Changes in Pronunciation brought on by the Course of Ages and through the obstinate Adherence of that People to old Customs, and among others to their old manner of Writing, the original Sounds of Letters and Words are lost, and no longer considered. I am, my dear Friend, Yours affectionately,
B Franklin.

Endorsed: Dr. Franklin’s Alphabet &ca.


Title: From Benjamin Franklin to Charles-Guillaume-Frédéric Dumas, 25 July 1768
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To: Dumas, Charles-Guillaume-Frédéric

Sir,
Cravenstreet, London, July 25. 1768
I received your Favour of the 20th of April with the very entertaining and informing Books you so obligingly sent me, for which I thank you.
As you seem only to have seen Extracts in the Magazines from the Account of East Florida, I send you the Book itself, which may afford you some farther Lights concerning the Country. I am not myself otherwise much acquainted with it than from such publick Writings, my Place of Abode, Philadelphia, being near 1000 Miles from Florida. I can only remark to you that generally those who have at heart the Settlement of New Countries, are apt, while they expatiate on the Advantages, to pass over and conceal the Disadvantages, so that a just Idea of the New Country is rarely to be obtained by reading their Accounts. And as you profess a Reliance on my Opinion in the Affair of your Removal to America, I must not advise you to go to E. Florida, lest my Unacquaintedness with that Country should lead you into hazardous Mistakes. Besides, when I consider —— the Hardships usually attending the Settlement of New Countries, and the Sickness and Mortality to which new Settlers, unaccustomed to the Climate, are exposed, I cannot think such Undertakings so fit for Persons of your and your Wife’s Age, that have Children depending on them, as for young unmarried Persons, whose Deaths can only affect themselves, or will not be attended with such unhappy Consequences. Therefore, if you cannot remain contented with your Situation in Holland, but are determined on a Country Life in America, my Advice to you would be, to purchase a Plantation ready formed, in one of the old settled Provinces, New York, New Jersey, or Pensilvania, of which there are Choice continually to be sold, as you will see by the Newspapers that I send you herewith. In either of these three Provinces the three modern Languages you possess, German, Low Dutch and French, may be useful to you, as there are Numbers of Germans, Hollanders, and French among the Inhabitants; and your other Accomplishments will be of more Value in a well-settled Country, than in a new One thin of People, and you will have more of the Pleasures and Comforts of Neighbourhood and Society. With the Money you are like to be possess’d of, at the End of your present Contract, you may certainly buy and Stock a very good Plantation in one of those flourishing Provinces, where the Climate is healthy, and the Government mild and good, and where, if any where, Competence and Happiness are within the Reach of every honest, prudent and industrious Man.
I purpose remaining here another Winter, and returning home to Pensilvania in the Spring. I hope your Resolution, whatever it is, may be attended with the Success you wish. If you determine for either of those Provinces, as I live in one of them, my Son in another, (N. Jersey, ) and I have some Friends in the third, N. York, I may possibly be of some Utility to you in your Settling, which would be a Pleasure to, Sir, Your most obedient humble Servant
B Franklin
Mr. Dumas.

Endorsed: Benjamin Franklin


Title: From Benjamin Franklin to Jacques Barbeu-Dubourg, 28 July 1768
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To: Barbeu-Dubourg, Jacques

London, July 21 [28],  1768.
I greatly approve the epithet, which you give in your letter of the 8th of June,  to the new method of treating the small-pox, which you call the tonic or bracing method. I will take occasion from it, to mention a practice to which I have accustomed myself. You know the cold bath has long been in vogue here as a tonic; but the shock of the cold water has always appeared to me, generally speaking, as too violent: and I have found it much more agreeable to my constitution, to bathe in another element, I mean cold air. With this view I rise early almost every morning, and sit in my chamber, without any clothes whatever, half an hour or an hour, according to the season, either reading or writing. This practice is not in the least painful, but on the contrary, agreeable; and if I return to bed afterwards, before I dress myself, as sometimes happens, I make a supplement to my night’s rest, of one or two hours of the most pleasing sleep that can be imagined. I find no ill consequences whatever resulting from it, and that at least it does not injure my health, if it does not in fact contribute much to its preservation. I shall therefore call it for the future a bracing or tonic bath.


Title: From Benjamin Franklin to Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, 28 July 1768
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To: Du Pont de Nemours, Pierre-Samuel

Sir
London, July 28. 1768
I received your obliging Letter of the 10th. of May, with the most acceptable Present of your Physiocratie, which I have read with great Pleasure, and received from it a great deal of Instruction. There is such a Freedom from local and national Prejudices and Partialities, so much Benevolence to Mankind in general, so much Goodness mixt with the Wisdom, in the Principles of your new Philosophy, that I am perfectly charm’d with them, and wish I could have staid in France for some time, to have studied in your School,  that I might, by conversing with its Founders have made myself quite a Master of that Philosophy. I had, before I went into your Country, seen some Letters of yours to Dr. Templeman,  that gave me a high Opinion of the Doctrines you are engag’d in cultivating, and of your personal Talents and Abilities, which made me greatly desirous of seeing you. Since I had not that good Fortune, the next best thing is the Advantage you are so good as to offer me, of your Correspondence, which I shall ever highly value, and endeavour to cultivate with all the Diligence I am capable of.
I am sorry to find, that that Wisdom which sees the Welfare of the Parts in the Prosperity of the Whole, seems not yet to be known in this Country. We are so far from conceiving that what is best for Mankind, or even for Europe, in general, may be best for us, that we are ever studying to establish and extend a separate Interest of Britain, to the Prejudice of even Ireland and our own Colonies! It is from your Philosophy only that the Maxims of a contrary and more happy Conduct are to be drawn, which I therefore sincerely wish may grow and increase till it becomes the governing Philosophy of the human Species, as it must be that of superior Beings in better Worlds.
I take the Liberty of sending you a little Fragment that has some Tincture of it, which, on that Account, I hope may be acceptable.
Be so good as to present my sincere Respects to that venerable Apostle Dr. Quesnay, and to the illustrious Ami des Hommes (of whose Civilities to me at Paris I retain a grateful Remembrance) and believe me to be, with real and very great Esteem, Sir, Your obliged and most obedient humble Servant
B. Franklin
M. Du Pont


Title: From Benjamin Franklin to John Alleyne, 9 August 1768
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To: Alleyne, John

This well known letter was apparently first published in The Gentleman’s Magazine, LIX (1789), 384–5; the printed version differs substantially from the draft in only a few passages, noted below. Little is known about John Alleyne: he was the son of Thomas Alleyne of Queen Street, Westminster, was admitted to the Middle Temple in 1767, married Nancy Rosewell of Clapton on May 29, 1768, published The Legal Degrees of Marriage Stated and Considered … (London, 1774), and died at Hackney in 1777; his widow died at Brighton in 1797. The evidence about Alleyne’s relationship with the Franklin family is even scantier. He seems to have been a friend of the William Franklins, and especially of Betsy, from their days in England. It is clear that Benjamin Franklin had known his family and been his mentor for some time, particularly in his studies; but there is no other record of this background, and the few subsequent letters that survive indicate nothing except that the two remained at least intermittently in touch for the next five years.

Dear Sir,
[August 9, 1768]
You made an Apology to me for not acquainting me sooner with your Marriage. I ought now to make an Apology to you for delaying so long the Answer to your Letter. It was mislaid or hid among my Papers, and much Business put it out of my Mind, or prevented my looking for it and writing when I thought of it. So this Account between us if you please may stand balanced.
I assure you it gave me great Pleasure to hear you were married, and into a Family of Reputation. This I learnt from the Public Papers. The Character you give me of your Bride, (as it includes every Qualification that in the married State conduces to mutual Happiness) is an Addition to that Pleasure. Had you consulted me, as a Friend, on the Occasion, Youth on both sides I should not have thought any Objection. Indeed from the Matches that have fallen under my Observation, I am rather inclined to think that early ones stand the best Chance for Happiness. The Tempers and Habits of young People are not yet become so stiff and uncomplying as when more advanced in Life, they form more easily to each other, and thence many Occasions of Disgust are removed. And if Youth has less of that Prudence that is necessary to manage a Family, yet the Parents and elder Friends of young married Persons are generally at hand to afford their Advice, which amply supplies that Defect; and by early Marriage, Youth is sooner form’d to regular and useful Life, and possibly some of those Accidents Habits or Connections that might have injured either the Constitution or the Reputation, or both, are thereby happily prevented. Particular Circumstances of particular Persons may possibly sometimes make it prudent to delay entering into that State, but in general when Nature has render’d our Bodies fit for it, the Presumption is in Nature’s Favour, that she has not judg’d amiss in making us desire it. Late Marriages are often attended too with this farther Inconvenience, that there is not the same Chance the Parents shall live to see their offspring educated. Late Children, says the Spanish Proverb, are early Orphans: A melancholly Reflection to those whose Case it may be! With us in N. America, Marriages are generally in the Morning of Life, our Children are therefore educated and settled in the World by Noon, and thus our Business being done, we have an Afternoon and Evening of chearful Leisure to our selves, such as your Friend at present enjoys. By these early Marriages we are blest with more Children, and from the Mode among us founded in Nature of every Mother suckling and nursing her own Child, more of them are raised. Thence the swift Progress of Population among us unparallel’d in Europe. In fine, I am glad you are married, and congratulate you cordially upon it. You are now more in the way of becoming a useful Citizen; and you have escap’d the unnatural State of Celibacy for Life, the Fate of many here who never intended it, but who having too long postpon’d the Change of their Condition, find at length that ’tis too late to think of it, and So live all their Lives in a Situation that greatly lessens a Man’s Value: An odd Volume of a Set of Books, you know, is not worth its proportion of the Set; and what think you of the Usefulness of an odd Half of a Pair of Scissars? It cannot well cut any thing. It may possibly serve to scrape a Trencher.
Pray make my Compliments and best Wishes acceptable to your Spouse. I am old and heavy, and grow a little indolent,  or I should ere this have presented them in Person. I shall make but small Use of the old Man’s Privilege, that of giving Advice to younger Friends. Treat your Wife always with Respect. It will procure Respect to you, not from her only, but from all that observe it. Never use a slighting Expression to her even in jest; for Slights in Jest after frequent bandyings, are apt to end in angry earnest. Be studious in your Profession, and you will be learned. Be industrious and frugal, and you will be rich. Be sober and temperate and you will be healthy. Be in general virtuous, and you will be happy. At least you will by such Conduct stand the best Chance for such Consequences. I pray God to bless you both, being ever Your truly affectionate Friend
B Franklin


Title: From Benjamin Franklin to Deborah Franklin, 9 August 1768
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To: Franklin, Deborah

My dear Child,
Pensilvania Coffeehouse Aug. 9, 1768
I have been in the Country for a few Days, and calling here this Morning I learn that this Ship, Capt. Ross, is to sail today for Philadelphia. I have nothing material to add to my last, but send this Line merely to let you know that I am extremely well, Thanks to God. Mr. Coleman is so far recovered that he thinks to return in Capt. Falkener, who sails next Saturday. I wish I could go with him, but I must have Patience a little longer. My Love to our Children. I shall write fully per Falkener, and send the new Watch, etc. to Sally. I am, Your ever loving Husband
B Franklin


Title: Queries, 16–18 August 1768
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To:

QUERIES recommended to the Consideration of those Gentlemen who are for vigorous Measures with the Americans.
1. Have the Colonists refused to answer any reasonable requisitions made to their Assemblies by the Mother Country?

2. If they have not refused to grant reasonable aids in the way, which they think consistent with liberty, why must they be stripped of their property without their own consent, and in a way, which they think inconsistent with liberty?
3. What is it for a people to be enslaved and tributary, if this be not, viz. To be forced to give up their property at the arbitrary pleasure of persons, to whose authority they have not submitted themselves, nor chosen for the purpose of imposing taxes upon them? Wherein consisted the impropriety of King Charles’s demanding ship-money by his sole authority, but in its being an exercise of power by the King, which the people had not given the King? Have the people of America, as the people of Britain, by sending Representatives, consented to a power in the British Parliament to tax them?
4. Has not the British Parliament, by repealing the stamp act, acknowledged that they judged it improper? Is there any difference between the stamp act, and the act obliging the Americans to pay whatever we please, for articles which they cannot do without, as glass and paper? Is there any difference as to justice between our treatment of the Colonists, and the tyranny of the Carthaginians over their conquered Sardinians, when they obliged them to take all their corn from them, and at whatever price they pleased to set upon it?
5. If that be true, which is commonly said, viz. That the Mother Country gains two millions a year by the Colonies, would it not have been wiser to have gone on quietly in the happy way we were in, till our gains by those rising and flourishing countries should amount to three, four, or five millions a year, than by these new-fashioned vigorous measures to kill the goose which lays the golden eggs? Would it not have been better policy, instead of taxing our Colonists, to have done whatever we could to enrich them, and encourage them to take off our articles of luxury, on which we may put our own price, and thus draw them into paying us a voluntary tax; than deluge them in blood, thin their countries, empoverish and distress them, interrupt their commerce, force them on bankruptcy, by which our merchants must be ruined, or tempt them to emigrations, or alliances with our enemies?
6. The late war could not have been carried on without America, nor without Scotland? Have we treated America and Scotland in such a manner as is likely in future wars to encourage their zeal for the common cause? Or is England alone to be the Drawcansir of the world, and to bully not only her enemies, but her friends?
7. Are not the subjects of Britain concerned to check a ministry, who, by this rage of heaping taxes on taxes, are only drawing into their own hands more and more wealth and power, while they are hurting the commercial interest of the empire in general, at the same time that, amidst profound peace, the national debt and burden on the public continue undiminished?
N.M.C.N.P.C.H.


Title: From Benjamin Franklin to Joseph Galloway, 20 August 1768
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To: Galloway, Joseph

Dear Sir,
London, August 20. 1768
I wrote a pretty long Letter to you by Falconer, in which I acquainted you with what had heretofore pass’d between Lord Hillsborough and myself relating to the Change of our Government; and that I proposed waiting on him again in a few Days, in consequence of an Intimation I had received that he was now disposed to favour the Petition. I have accordingly been with him, and had a long Audience of him upon the Subject, the Particulars of which I cannot at present give you, but the Conclusion was, that we parted without agreeing on any thing, the Advice he gave us in order to obtain the Change, being such as I assur’d him we could not take. I shall therefore move the Matter no farther during the Administration of a Minister that appears to have a stronger Partiality for Mr. Penn than any of his Predecessors. I stay however a little longer here, till I see what Turn American Affairs are like to take. The next News from America, which is anxiously expected, will probably enable us to judge. A Party is now growing in our Favour, which I shall endeavour to increase and strengthen by every Effort of Tongue and Pen. Possibly by our united Endeavours (I wish I could say probably) the Repeal of the late offensive Duties may be obtained. If it should be resolv’d by the Ministry to make us easy, I know not but I may still return this Fall. But otherwise, I shall stay the Session, to see if the new Parliament can be brought to disapprove of the violent Measures talked of, and to repeal the Act. Sir Jeffery Amherst’s being stript of his Offices, gives great Offence to all the Military People here, and tho’ the Measure of requiring a chief Governor to reside in his Government was not in itself a wrong thing, yet Advantage is taken of it by the Opposition, to arraign the Conduct of Lord Hillsborough, and render him odious. Please to present my best Respects and Duty to the Assembly, and assure them of my most faithful Services. With great Esteem, I am, Dear Sir, Your most obedient and most humble Servant
B Franklin
Joseph Galloway, Esqr.


Title: On Civil War, 25 August 1768
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To:

To the Printer:
Sir,
Threescore years did the oppressed United Provinces maintain a war in defence of their liberties against the then powerful kingdom of Spain, with all the wealth of the Indies at it’s command; and finally obliged [it] to acknowledge their independency in a formal treaty, sitting down with the loss of territory, treasure and reputation, and with a broken strength that has never since been recovered.
Contractors, jobbing mercantile members of parliament, officers starving on half pay, and gunsmiths who toast, as the papers tell us, a speedy and a perpetual war, may wish, rather than no war at all, for a civil one in America. These in all conversations, to encourage us in undertaking it, slight the strength of those distant people, think nothing of that enthusiasm for liberty, which in other countries and ages has supplied all deficiencies, and enabled a weak people to battle the efforts of a stronger; but tell us that half a dozen regiments are sufficient to reduce in less than a year every province on the continent. Half a dozen being once engaged in this blessed service, it is easy to write and shew the necessity for more: The more there are, the greater the profits to those gentry. And whatever becomes of us poor devils that live by manufactures or by trade, that are to pay taxes, or that have money in the funds, they will amass fortunes, buy our estates, bribe our boroughs, and vote in parliament the rectitude of the measure.
I believe our officers and soldiers as brave as any in the world; and from that very opinion of their bravery I conjecture they would not generally relish the being ordered on this murdering service against their countrymen; to shed English blood, to stifle the British spirit of liberty now rising in the Colonies; that Liberty which we should rather wish to see nourished and preserved there, as on a loss of it here (which from our vices is perhaps not far distant) we or our posterity may have occasion to resort to and participate of; and possibly some of the ablest officers may choose, with Sir Jeffery Amherst, rather to resign their commissions. But whatever may be the bravery and military prowess of our troops, and whatever the zeal with which they would proceed in such a war, there are reasons that make me suspect it will not be so soon terminated as some folks would have us believe.
My reasons are drawn chiefly from a computation founded on facts. It is well known that America is a country full of forests, mountains, &c. That in such a country a small irregular force can give abundance of trouble to a regular one that is much greater: And that, in the last war, one of the fifteen Colonies we now have there (and one far short of being the strongest) held out five years against twenty five thousand British regular troops, joined by twenty-five thousand Colonists on their own pay, and aided by a strong fleet of men of war. What the expence was to this nation, our treasury books and augmented debt may shew. The expence to America, as their pay was higher, could not be much less. The Colony we made war upon was indeed aided by France, but during the whole contest not with more than five thousand men. Now supposing that the twenty five thousand Colonists, that then joined us, should hereafter be against us, and that this makes no difference, and considering that instead of one Colony to conquer, we are to have fifteen, and that possibly some of our good neighbours may think of making a diversion in their favour, I apprehend it not out of the way to allow five years still to a Colony; and this, by my computation, will amount to just seventy-five years. I hope Messieurs the company of gunsmiths will for the present be so good as to be content with a civil war of seventy-five years, as perhaps we may scarce be able to afford them a perpetual one.

And what are we to gain by this war, by which our trade and manufactures are to be ruined, our strength divided and diminished, our debt increased, and our reputation, as a generous nation, and lovers of liberty, given up and lost? Why, we are to convert millions of the King’s loyal subjects into rebels, for the sake of establishing a newly claimed power in P——to tax a distant people, whose abilities and circumstances they cannot be acquainted with, who have a constitutional power of taxing themselves; who have never refused to give us voluntarily more than we can ever expect to wrest from them by force; and by our trade with whom we gain millions a year!
And is there not one wise and good man to be found in Britain, who can propose some conciliating measure that may prevent this terrible mischief? I fear not one. For
  Quos Deus vult perdere, dementat prius !N. N.


Title: On Absentee Governors: I, 26 August 1768
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To:

To the Printer of the Public Advertiser.
Sir,
It is wonderful what a Clamour an unreasonable Opposition will often make against Measures of Government in themselves the most reasonable, just and prudent. The Assembly of Virginia had granted an ample fix’d Salary for the Support of their Governor. The Event was, that the Governor appointed has always hitherto, during a Number of Successions, made a Sinecure of his Office, and sent a Deputy, generally poor and hungry, who required a new Support, and became thereby as much dependent on the People, as if no such fix’d Support had been settled. Every body sees the Propriety of having our Colony Governors free from such Dependance, and particularly at a Time when the Authority of this Country over that refractory People is disputed, and requires every Support that a spirited Conduct in a Governor can give it. And yet no other Colony would follow the Example of Virginia in settling such fix’d salaries, because they saw it in that Instance so abused. This was the sole Motive of requiring Sir Jeffery Amherst, as Governor of that Province, to repair to his Post; though the Enemies of the new Secretary of State affect to have it understood as an Affront put on that meritorious Officer, in order to gratify a private Friend with an Appointment to his Place. But that there is no Truth in this Calumny appears clearly from hence, that all the Civil Officers who have profitable Patent Places in the Colonies, and by residing there may use the Weight and Influence their Stations give them in Support of the just Authority of Government, such as Secretaries of Provinces, Provost Marshals, Clerks of Courts, &c. are all ordered to their Posts directly; and particularly the two Proprietaries of Maryland and Pensylvania, who being chief Governors there, as Sir Jeffery was in Virginia, and whose great Property, which they derive from the Crown, gives them an additional Influence among the People, have been required to repair to their respective Governments without Loss of Time; and the Maryland Proprietary is already gone accordingly. This the Public may depend on for Fact. I am, Sir, Your humble Servant,
Daylight.


Title: On Absentee Governors: II, 27 August 1768
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To:

There are some advocates for the Ministers so extremely forward, that they cannot wait till they obtain a true information of facts. Even Daylight unluckily is very much in the dark himself. The truth is, that NOT ONE of the officers he mentions, except Sir Jeffery Amherst, have been ordered to their posts, not even the Governors of Maryland and Pennsylvania, whom he expressly says are gone, or going; an appointment of a new deputy by the former being actually approved by the Am——n S——ry, AT THE VERY TIME of Sir Jeffery’s removal, and that Governor (Lord Baltimore) instead of being gone to Maryland, (his post) is gone to France, or Turky, or some-where else, on his travels. The other Governor too, Mr. P——, may, to all appearance, stay and indulge himself here as long as he pleases, while he can continue his bows to our new Haman, the S——y, which it seems honest Mordecai unfortunately omitted. What makes his case the harder is, that in the long and laborious service of the American war, he had so little attention to his own interest, that he returned without making a Sixpence; and as the having done a worthy man one injury generally inclines the aggressor to follow it with a second and a third, we may, for aught I know, (but God forbid!) live to see another Bellisaire ! I am, your’s, &c.
Twilight.


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from [Alexander] Jacob, 29 August 1768
From: Jacob, Alexander
To: Franklin, Benjamin

Aug. 29. 1768
Mr. Jacob presents his Compliments to Dr. Franklyn and begs the favour of his Company to meet honest friend Cumming at the Chaplain’s Room at St. James’s to morrow to take a bit of the King’s Mutton at three oClock.


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from John Swinton, Jr., 29 August 1768
From: Swinton, John, Jr.
To: Franklin, Benjamin

Sir
Edinr 29th Augt 1768
May I beg the Favor that you will transmit the enclosed Letter to your Son. He desired me to pay to you four Guineas which he was so good as [to ad]vance for me, and accordingly you have herewith an order for that Sum. I am Sir with great Regard your most obedient and most humble Servant
John Swinton Junr
To Benjamin Franklin Esqr

Endorsed: 127 J Swinton for W F. £4 4s. 0d.


Title: From Benjamin Franklin to Dennys DeBerdt, 31 August 1768
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To: DeBerdt, Dennys

Sir,
In the Gazetteer of Friday, Aug. 26. you have been so obliging as to inform us, that the Report insinuating that the Earl of Hillsborough had neglected to deliver a Petition from the Assembly of the Massachusetts Bay to his Majesty, was groundless, his Lordship not having ever seen the Petition at the time of such Report.
We are very subject to be impos’d on by Reports especially such as convey any Reflection upon Ministers, an Order of Men of whom we have not generally the best Opinion. It is therefore kind to us as well as to them, to set us right when we are misled. And as such Reports are generally varied according to the Ignorance or Malice of the Reporters, it would be well if all their Variations could be answered with a Clearness, equal to yours in that above mentioned. Now since it must be as much in your Power, we hope and trust you will be as ready to refute this, “That his Lordship having had from Governor Barnard an Account of the Purport of the Assembly’s Petition, refused to receive it from you, on a Distinction newly started, to wit, that you were not a regularly appointed Agent, being authoris’d only by the Assembly, to transact their Business here, the Governor not having consented to your Appointment.” We would just observe that this State of the Report is more probable than the other, it being as unlikely that his Lordship should neglect to present a Petition he had once received, as it is that you would neglect [to] offer it [to h]im. We are, Sir, Yours, &c
The Publick

P.S. Excuse us if we add, that tho’ we have no right to ask what the Reasons were, that, in your Letters of March last, you gave to the Assembly, for not proceeding with their Petition; yet, as in their Message to the Governor of June the 30th. when they had probably received those Letters, they say, “it had been revealed there that the late Provincial Applications for Redress of Grievances had been somehow strangely obstructed;” and as the Assembly of Maryland, in their Message to their Governor, hint at “an Attempt in some of his Majesty’s Ministers to prevent the Supplications of America from reaching the Royal Ear;” we own it would be extreamly agreable to us to be rightly informed in this important Affair: And if you are, as we believe you are, more desirous of obliging the Publick, and serving your Constituents, than of screening a Minister, we doubt not but you will give us all reasonable Satisfaction.
To Mr. Denis DeBerdt, Agent for the Assembly of the Massachusetts Bay.


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from Peter Timothy, 3 September 1768
From: Timothy, Peter
To: Franklin, Benjamin

Dear Sir,
Chas. Town, So. Carolina, Sept. 3d. 1768.
The Bearer is the young Man you desired me to enquire about, and from [by] whom I have sent two Letters (under your Cover) for Mr. Traill. I shall just repeat what I wrote you before, concerning him “That I knew his Father perfectly well; that his Mother lived almost opposite to me, when the present James Stewart was born; that she had not the Means to do great Matters, yet was very attentive to his Education; that I knew who taught him, Mr. Wm. Henderson (now in London) of whom he learnt some Latin. That his Mother dying in indigent Circumstances, he fell under the Care of Mr. Francis Stuart, of Beaufort, Port-Royal,  with whom he has been some Years: And that I have enquired into his Disposition and Conduct, and have favourable Accounts of both.”
It was lucky for Mr. Spencer that you recommended him to me. He is happily settled. And in May last I was reimbursed the Money I paid Maitland on your Bill, with what he owed you.
I should have done myself the Pleasure to write you frequently, but that I was constantly told you would be on your Return home before my Letters could reach England. And Mr. Foxcroft has assured me that you would be in Philadelphia in June last. Otherwise I could have given you from Time to Time a great deal of Intelligence—in such a confused Manner as my perplexed Head would have admitted, who find myself from the most popular reduced to the most unpopular Man in the Province; by taking upon me a Place in the Post-Office at the Time of the Stamp-Act; discontinuing Printing, while its Operation was in Suspence; and declining to direct, support and engage in the most violent Opposition—which so exasperated every Body that they have taken every Step to injure, and set up Crouch (a worthless Fellow) against me, whom they support with their utmost Zeal and Interest. Ruduced to this Situation I have not been myself since Nov. 1765. Nor shall I recover, unless I quit the Post-Office when some other Occasion offers to distinguish myself in the Cause of America.
I do not suppose there is a Colony on this Continent in so flourishing and promising a Situation as So. Carolina at present. Private and public Works are every where carrying on with Spirit. A Beacon and Light-House for this Harbour are near finished on Middle-Bay Island. The Fortifications on White Point (which were made only of Fascines before), are walling in with great Expedition, and faced with Palmeta-Logs. The new Watch-House is covered in and will make no despicable Appearance; it is raised a Story beyond the first Design, to contain the Treasurer’s, Country Controller’s, and Powder-Receiver’s Offices. A Stone Bridge at the North End of the Town is completed. The Exchange is begun, and will be an elegant Structure. A new Hospital is in some Forwardness, and the old is to be converted into a proper Work-House. The Survey of the Province is pursued with Diligence, by Tacitus Gaillard on the Land, and James Cook by Water. A Canal is to be made at the Head of our principal Street, the End opposite to the Exchange,  and a large Body of Marsh to be bank’d in for a Common. At the same Time very elegant Buildings are raising in almost every Street by private Gentlemen. The Lawyers, Doctors; and Planters get rich apace; the Merchants do not in general so well. Our Staple Rice is in a fine Way. The enormous Crop made last Year will be exceeded this. Yet after all, the Country is in great Confusion. The Jurisdiction of the Courts in Charles-Town is loudly complained of, and is in Fact, a great Grievance. The People in the Back Settlements have solicited Redress, and their Solicitations too much disregarded. They are at last in Arms, and refuse Submission to every Law or Act of Government that to them is oppressive; and seem resolute to stand out, till the Nature of the Disease suggests the Remedy. They call themselves Regulators, and intend to regulate our ensuing Election by marching down 100 or 150 Men to every Parish where they have a Right (which they never before exercised) to vote. And these People extend from the Sea on one Side, to Savannah River on the other; 45 Miles deep. They consist of two Parties. Both owe to their Origin to Grenville’s hellish Idea of the Stamp-Act, when some from Chas. Town persuaded those ignorant Back Settlers, that if the Duty was suffered to take Place, they would even pay it for their Produce, Cattle, Horses, &c. and every other Article. This brought them together, and put into their Heads to expell all the Virginia Horse Thieves, &c. Justice not being obtainable on them, without immense Expence, they punished them themselves—and at last they looked into other Matters. [I have sent Miles Brewton,  Esq. of this Place, now in London, a Copy of some extraordinary Resolutions.] But the Bearer waits and this Ship is under Sail—I must break off short, and am ever, with the greatest Regard, Your most obedient and most humble Servant
Petr. Timothy


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from James Parker, 10 September 1768
From: Parker, James
To: Franklin, Benjamin

Honoured Sir
Nyork Sept. 10. 1768
Tho’ I have not had the Pleasure of one Line from you for many Months past yet I will write a Word or two. Mrs. Franklin I hear expects you in the August Packet, but your Son, who is gone to Albany just now, told me he hardly expected you. I have not heard a Word from my unhappy Son, whether he be dead or alive, tho’ I heard the Vessel he went in arrived some Weeks before the Packet sail’d. It would have been kind had you mentioned any Thing of him, in any of yours, for our Satisfaction,  but as it is, we must leave it to Time to inform us. We have only our humble Remembrance of you, whilst I am Your most obliged Servant
James Parker


Title: From Benjamin Franklin to Jane Mecom, 20 September 1768
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To: Mecom, Jane

Dear Sister,
London, Sept. 20. 1768
The last Letter I have received from you is dated May 11. I hope you continue well, tho’ ’tis so long since I have heard from you. As your good Friend Capt. Freeman has not been here this Summer, I am afraid his Sickness that you mention proved fatal to him,  which I shall be sorry to hear, as I had conceiv’d a great Esteem for him. I suppose the Dissolution of your Assembly will affect you a little in the Article of Boarders; but do not be discouraged. Your Debt to Mrs. Stevenson is paid, and she presents her kind Respects to you, and desires you will freely command her Service at any time. I cannot always conveniently send you the Pieces I write in the Papers here, for several Reasons; but will do it when I can. I send the Mezzotinto Print herewith. My Love to Cousin Jenny and all enquiring Friends, from Your affectionate Brother
B Franklin

Addressed: To / Mrs. Mecom / Hannover Street / Boston / per favour of / Mr Rogers


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from Jean-Baptiste LeRoy, [before 21 September 1768]
From: Le Roy, Jean-Baptiste
To: Franklin, Benjamin

[Before Sept. 21, 1768]
J’ai oublié Monsieur, dans la lettre que j’ai donnée a M. L’abbe Taglieri, pour vous, de vous demander une grace; c’est de me faire le plaisir de m’envoyer par la première occasion, que vous pourrez trouver, une petite provision de feuilles d’apalachine,  dont j’ai mis un echantillon dans ce petit pacquet. C’est pour une de mes parentes, qui, sachant que j’ai l’honneur d’être connu de vous, m’a prié instamment de vous en demander. Et comme cette plante, croit dans vos montagnes des apalaches, je pense qu’un deputé de L’Amérique doit en avoir facilement. Si la chose est possible, je vous en serai infiniment obligé.
J’ai l’honneur d’être avec les sentimens d’estime les plus distingués Monsieur Votre très humble et très obéissant serviteur
LeRoy

P.S. Voudrez vous bien Monsieur presenter mes hommages à Mr. Pringle et procurer sa connoissance à M. l’abbé Taglier[i].

Addressed: To / Doctr Benjamin Franklin / Deputy of the American Colonies / Buckingham Street / york buildings / London


Title: From Benjamin Franklin to Giambatista Beccaria, 21 September 1768
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To: Beccaria, Giambatista

Honoured Sir,
London, September 21, 1768
The bearer of this letter, my good friend Monsieur l’Epinasse, is a brilliant student of electricity and one of the best there are. He plans to visit Turin, and, since he has a great wish to make your acquaintance, I could not refuse to grant him that honour through this letter, which will serve as an introduction to you and which, I hope, your kindness will excuse.
I had already planned to write to you at length on the subject of your last letter, but the business in which I am involved here distracts my attention so completely from philosophical matters, and I have been flattering myself so constantly with the hope of going home where I could find the leisure to pick up my studies again, that I have shamefully put off from moment to moment this project of mine. In spite of all this, I can only admit my fault and ask for your forgiveness, while assuring you that nobody has more perfect esteem and respect for your Reverence than he who has the honour to be, Honoured Sir, your most obedient and humble servant
B. Franklin


Title: Answers to the Late Queries on the Colonies, 22–24 September 1768
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To:

To the Printer of the London Chronicle.
Sir,
In your Paper of Sept. 15, you inserted the following Queries, dated from Langford. By reprinting them with the annexed Answers, I hope you will give some Satisfaction to the Querist; at least you will oblige, Your’s, &c.
An American.

“Queries relative to the Colonies and Islands belonging to Great Britain.”
Observation. It would have been more rightly expressed, if you had said, “to the King of Great Britain.”

Query 1. Whether, the chief plea that the Colonists urge for not obeying Acts of the British Parliament, is, their not being represented in the said Parliament?
Answer. Yes. And a better plea it is than any the People of Great Britain have, who consume smuggled goods, omit entring their plate, &c. contrary to their own acts.
Q. 2. Whether, as Englishmen, their plea is not constitutional, as no Englishman ought to be governed by laws he does not give his consent to, either in person, or by his representative, especially when money laws are the objects in dispute?
A. Yes; certainly.
Q. 3. Whether it would not deprive the Colonists of their chief plea, if a Bill was passed to enable them to send Representatives to the Hon. House of Commons in England, under such restrictions and limitations as to the wisdom of the House shall seem meet? and then, whether they would not be without excuse, if they did not send Representatives, or not obey the Acts of the Legislature here?
A. If the Querist, when he mentions “such restrictions and limitations as to the wisdom of the House should seem meet,” had added, “being also such as to the Americans shall seem suitable and equitable, and accordingly be agreed to by them,” his consequence would have been just, “that they would be without excuse if they did not afterwards send Representatives, and obey the Acts of the Legislature here.” But if the Americans should not think such proposed union practicable; or if the number of Representatives allowed them should not be an equitable proportion; or if the Representatives allowed were to act under any restrictions and limitations that others here are free from, and the Colonies should for those reasons not agree to the Act; by the Querist’s own principle, contained in his second Query, they ought not to be compelled to accept of it.
Q. 4. Whether the Colonists are not now, and whether they have not long been, immensely in debt to the Mother Country?
A. In all trade where manufacturers and tradesmen, or merchants, supply consumers with their commodities, there will be constantly subsisting a proportion of debt; because trade cannot be carried on to such extent, if confined to ready-money bargains only; and because the tradesmen or merchants chuse, by giving credit, to encourage buyers and draw custom. The debt due from the Colonies is not proportionably greater than the debt due from the Nobility and Gentry of England to their Tradesmen here: And if any of it is longer due (which I do not believe) it is not owing to any greater unwillingness in the Americans to pay their debts as fast as they are able, but to the greater willingness of their Creditors that the debt should continue, as they receive for it an interest of five per cent. An interest as justly and honestly due from the Gentry of England, who however do not pay it. With regard to the “immensity” of the debt, I question whether it exceeds the value of one year’s trade; many people there sending bills, money, tobacco, rice, sugar, skins, and other commodities, to purchase what they want, and requiring no credit.
Q. 5. Whether the Mother Country, in consequence thereof, is not rather dependant on the Colonists, than the Colonists on the Mother Country?
A. Tradesmen and Manufacturers are in some sort dependant on their Customers, at least for their good will; and if they would have them continue Customers, should act in character, treat them with civility, and by that means endeavour to retain them. If this dependance is disagreable to you, you can free yourselves when you please, by refusing to sell us any more goods, and so oblige us to buy elsewhere, or manufacture for ourselves. But a Shopkeeper that pretended to kick and cuff all who disliking his behaviour or exorbitant demands would no longer use his commodities, or chose to go to a cheaper and civiller shop, could hardly expect long to keep his business.
Q. 6. Whether the greatness of the said debt is not chiefly owing to the difficulty of compelling the Colonists to pay their creditors?
A. The greatness of the debt is not owing to any such difficulty. It is in fact more easy to recover a debt in any of the Northern Colonies than in England. Suits are neither so dilatory nor so expensive there as here. All their landed and real estates are subject to the payment of their debts, and may be taken in execution and sold even for book debts,  which here cannot be done. A book account proved here before a proper Magistrate, and the proof attested by him, is good evidence in the Courts there, though it is not here. But if you compare the difficulty of recovering a debt in any of the Colonies, with that which Tradesmen here find in collecting their debts among yourselves, especially from People of Fashion, the last by all accounts is far the greatest.
Q. 7. Whether that difficulty is not principally owing to the creditor’s being obliged to commence processes in the Province or Island the Colonist resides in?
A. Not at all; for the reasons above given.
Q. 8. Whether that difficulty would not be removed, if an Act was passed by the Legislature here, to compel the Colonist to be amenable to a Subpoena (issued out of the Court of Chancery in England) in a reasonable time after such Subpoena being served on the Colonist?
A. Such an Act is unnecessary, improper, and impracticable. It is unnecessary, because the King’s Courts are open there, on whose justice there is no imputation. To employ the High Court of Chancery of Great Britain in recovering plain book debts in the Colonies, is beneath its dignity, and therefore improper. And to execute such an Act, by sending backwards and forwards at so great a distance all the bills, answers, replies, rejoinders, rebutters, and surrebutters, and other parts of the process infinite in number, would, if “reasonable time” were allowed, make a suit eternal; and therefore it is impracticable. But should any Act be made to bring American debtors to answer in Courts here, what would the Querist think of a clause to impower American creditors to call British debtors over to their Courts in America? ’Tis equally absurd, I own; but the Act without such clause would scarce be equitable. And Britain is not always the creditor. Within these two years, two considerable houses in London have stopt payment, greatly in debt to America for wheat.
Q. 9. Whether such a law would not greatly turn the scale in favour of the Mother Country, and the Colonists could not justly complain of such a law? and whether such a law would not recover great sums, and save the Merchants of these Kingdoms many thousand pounds yearly?
A. The scale needs no turning in favour of the Mother Country; ’tis already turn’d and down. If the Colonists had had, according to the second Query, a constitutional hand in making such or any law, and so had given their consent to it, they certainly could not then justly complain of it. But as to its “recovering great sums, and saving the Merchants of these Kingdoms many thousand pounds yearly” I apprehend, for the reasons above given, that such expectation is altogether groundless. The very magnitude of the credit constantly given to America, is itself a proof, that your Merchants think and find their debts as safe and as easily recoverable there as any where.