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That is the place where your enlightened zeal for the welfare of our country can employ itself most to our advantage, and I know it is always at work, and indefatigable. Our enemies are, as you observe, very industrious in depreciating our national character. Their abuse sometimes provokes me, and I am almost ready to retaliate; but I have held my hand, though there is abundant room for recrimination; because I would do nothing that might hasten another quarrel, by exasperating those who are still sore from their late disgraces. Perhaps it may be best that they should please themselves with fancying us weak, and poor, and divided, and friendless; they may then not be jealous of our growing strength, (which since the peace, does really make rapid progress) and may be less intent on interrupting it.

whole amiable fireside. You will allow an
old friend of fourscore to say he loves your
wife, when he adds and children, and prays
God to bless them all.
"B. FRANKLIN."

'Marquis de Chastelleux.

"PHILADELPHIA, April 17, 1787. "DEAR SIR,-Your most pleasing letter accompanied by the invaluable present of your journal, and translation of colonel Humthough dated in June last. I believe they phrey's poem, came to hand but lately, have been in the West Indies. They have given me a great deal of pleasure in the peruportrait you have made of our country and sal, as every thing of yours always did. The people, is what in painting is called a handsome likeness, for which we are much obliged to you. We shall be the better for it if we endeavour to merit what you kindly say in our favour, and to correct what you justly

censure.

I am told the journal is translated into English, and printed in one of the states, I know not which, not having seen the translation.

about to have an assembly of Notables, to "The newspapers tell us, that you are consult on improvements of your government. It is somewhat singular, that we should be engaged in the same project here at the same

"I do not wonder that the Germans, who know little of free constitutions, should be ready to suppose that such cannot support themselves. We think they may, and we hope to prove it. That there should be faults in our first sketches or plans of government is not surprising; rather, considering the times, and the circumstances under which they were formed, it is surprising that the faults are so few. Those in the general confederating articles, are now about to be considered in a convention called for that express purpose; these will indeed be the most difficult to rectify. Those of particular states will undoubt-time, but so it is, and a convention for the edly be rectified, as their inconveniences shall purpose of revising and amending our federal by experience be made manifest. And what- constitution is to meet at this place next month. ever difference of sentiment there may be I hope both assemblies will be blessed with among us respecting particular regulations, success, and that their deliberations and counthe enthusiastic rejoicings with which the day may promote the happiness of both naof declared independence is annually celebrated, demonstrate the universal satisfaction of the people with the revolution and its grand principles.

"I enclose the vocabulary you sent me, with the words of the Shawanese and Delaware languages, which colonel Harmar has procured for me. He is promised one more complete, which I shall send you as soon as it comes to my hands.

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"In the state of Pennsylvania, government, notwithstanding our parties, goes on at present very smoothly; so that I have much less trouble in my station than was expected. Massachusetts has lately been disturbed by some The rest of the states go on pretty well, exdisorderly people; but they are now quelled. cept some dissensions in Rhode Island and Maryland respecting paper money. Mr. My grandson, whom you so kindly inquire to deliver this letter to you, can give you full Paine, whom you know, and who undertakes after, is at his estate in the Jerseys, and amuses information of our affairs, and therefore I need himself with cultivating his lands. I wish he would seriously make a business of it, and renot enlarge upon them. I beg leave to renounce all thoughts of public employment, for commend him to your civilities. I have fulI think agriculture the most honourable, be-filled all your commissions to the ladies here, cause the most independent of all professions. brance of them.-My family join in every who are much flattered by your kind rememBut I believe he hankers a little after Paris, or some other of the polished cities of Europe, sentiment of esteem and respect with, my dear thinking the society there preferable to what friend, yours most affectionately, he meets with in the woods of Ancocas; as it certainly is. If he was now here, he would undoubtedly join with me and the rest of my family (who are much flattered by your remembrance of them) in the best wishes for your health and prosperity, and that of your

"B. FRANKLIN."

"The Abbé Morellet, Paris.

"PHILADELPHIA, April 22, 1787. "MY VERY DEAR FRIEND,-I received, though long after they were written, your

very agreeable favours of October, 30, '85, and February 9, '86, with the pieces enclosed, productions of the Auteuil Academy of belles lettres. Your kind and friendly wishes and congratulations are extremely obliging. It gives me an infinite pleasure to find that I still retain a favourable place in the remembrance of the worthy and the good, whose delightful and instructive society I had the happiness of enjoying while I resided in France. But though I could not leave that dear nation without regret, I certainly did right in coming home. I am here in my niche in my own house in the bosom of my family, my daughter and grandchildren all about me, among my old friends or the sons of my friends, who equally respect me; and who all speak and understand the same language with me; and you know that if a man desires to be useful by the exercise of his mental faculties, he loses half their force when in a foreign country, where he can only express himself in a language with which he is not well acquainted. In short, I enjoy here every opportunity of doing good, and every thing else I could wish for, except repose; and that I may soon expect, either by the cessation of my office, which cannot last more than three years, or by ceasing to live.

"I am of the same opinion with you respecting the freedom of commerce, in countries especially where direct taxes are practicable. This will be our case in time, when our wide extended country fills up with inhabitants. But at present they are so widely settled, often five or six miles distant from one another in the back country, that the collection of a direct tax is almost impossible, the trouble of the collector's going from house to house amounting to more than the value of the tax. Nothing can be better expressed than your sentiments are on this point, where you prefer liberty of trading, cultivating, manufacturing, &c., even to civil liberty, this being affected but rarely, the other every hour. Our debt occasioned by the war being heavy, we are under the necessity of using imposts and every method we can think of to assist in raising a revenue to discharge it; but in sentiment we are well disposed to abolish duties on importation as soon as we possibly can afford to do so.

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the accounts of them are exaggerated, by our ancient enemies; but they are now nearly suppressed, and the rest of the states enjoy peace and good order, and flourish amazingly. The crops have been good for several years past, the price of country produce high, from foreign demand, and it fetches ready money; rents are high in our towns, which increase fast by new buildings; labourers and artizans have high wages well paid, and vast tracts of new land are continually clearing and rendered fit for cultivation.-I am, &c.

"B. FRANKLIN."

"Mr. Jordain.

"PHILADELPHIA, May 18, 1787. "DEAR SIR,-I received your very kind letter of February 27, together with the cask of porter you have been so good as to send me. We have here at present what the French call une assemblée des notables, a convention composed of some of the principal people from the several states of our confederation. They did me the honour of dining with me last Wednesday, when the task was broached, and its contents met with the most cordial reception and universal approbation. In short the company agreed unanimously, that it was the best porter they had ever tasted. Accept my thanks, a poor return, but all I can make at present.

You

"Your letter reminds me of many happy days we have passed together, and the dear friends with whom we passed them; some of whom, alas! have left us, and we must regret their loss, although our Hawkesworth* " is become an adventurer in more happy regions; and our Stanley gone, where only his own harmony can be exceeded.' give me joy in telling me that you are on the pinnacle of content.' Without it no situation can be happy; with it, any. One means of becoming content with one's situa tion, is the comparing it with a worse. Thus when I consider how many terrible diseases the human body is liable to, I comfort myself that only three incurable ones have fallen to my share, viz. the gout, the stone, and old age; and that these have not yet deprived me of my natural cheerfulness, my delight in books, and enjoyment of social conversation.

"I am glad to hear that Mr. Fitzmaurice is married, and has an amiable lady and children. It is a better plan than that he once proposed, of getting Mrs. Wright to make him a wax-work wife to sit at the head of his table. For after all, wedlock is the natural

John Hawkesworth, L. L. D. author of the Adventurer, and compiler of the account of the Discoveries made in the South Seas, by captain Cook.

↑ John Stanley, an eminent musician and composer, though he became blind at the age of two years.

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state of man. A bachelor is not a complete human being. He is like the odd half of a pair of scissors, which has not yet found its fellow, and therefore is not even half so useful as they might be together.

"I hardly know which to admire most; the wonderful discoveries made by Herschel, or the indefatigable ingenuity by which he has been enabled to make them. Let us hope, my friend, that when free from these bodily embarrassments, we may roam together through some of the systems he has explored, conducted by some of our old companions already acquainted with them. Hawkesworth will enliven our progress with his cheerful, sensible converse, and Stanley accompany the music of the spheres.

Mr. Watraaugh tells me, for I immediately, inquired after her, that your daughter is alive and well. I remember her a most promising and beautiful child, and therefore do not wonder that she is grown, as he says, a fine woman.

ville, and some others who honoured me with a show of friendly regard when in England. I believe I have thanked you for it, but I thank you again.

"I believe with you, that if our plenipo. is desirous of concluding a treaty of commerce, he may need patience. If I were in his place, and not otherwise instructed, I should be apt to say take your own time, gentlemen.' If the treaty cannot be made as much to your advantage as to ours, don't make it. I am sure the want of it is not more to our disadvantage than to yours. Let the merchants on both sides treat with one another. Laissez les faire.

"I have never considered attentively the congress's scheme for coining, and I have it not now at hand, so that at present I can say nothing to it. The chief uses of coining seem to be the ascertaining the fineness of the metals, and saving the time that would otherwise be spent in weighing to ascertain the quantity. But the convenience of fixed values to pieces "God bless her and you, my dear friend, is so great as to force the currency of some and every thing that pertains to you, is the whose stamp is worn off, that should have assincere prayer of yours, most affectionately, sured their fineness, and which are evidently ." B. FRANKLIN.” not of half their due weight: the case at preIn his 824 year..sent with the sixpences in England, which one with another do not weigh three pence.

To George Wheatley.

PHILADELPHIA, May 18, 1787.

I RECEIVED duly my good old friend's letter of the 19th of February. I thank you much for your notes on banks, they are just and solid, as far as I can judge of them. Our bank here has met with great opposition, partly from envy, and partly from those who wish an emission of more paper.money, which they think the bank influence prevents. But it has stood all attacks, and went on well, notwithstand ing the assembly.repealed its charter. A new assembly has restored it; and the management is so prudent, that I have no doubt of its continuing to go on well: the dividend has never been less than six per cent., nor will that be augmented for some time, as the surplus profit is reserved to face accidents. The dividend of eleven per cent., which was once made, was from a circumstance scarce unavoidable. A new company was proposed; and prevented only by admitting a number of new partners. As many of the first set were averse to this, and chose to withdraw, it was necessary to settle their accounts; so all were adjusted, the profits shared that had been accumulated, and the new and old proprietors jointly began on a new and equal footing. Their notes are always instantly paid on demand, and pass on all occasions as readily as silver, because they will always produce silver.

"Your medallion is in good company, it is placed with those of lord Chatham, lord Camden, marquis of Rockingham, sir George Sa

"You are now 78, and I am 82; you tread fast upon my heels: but though you have more strength and spirit, you cannot come up with me till I stop, which must now be soon; for I am grown so old as to have buried most of the friends of my youth, and I now often hear persons, whom I knew when children, called old Mr. such-a-one, to distinguish them from their sons, now men grown and in business; so that by living twelve years beyond David's period, I seem to have intruded myself into the company of posterity, when I ought to have been a-bed and asleep. Yet had I gone at seventy, it would have cut off twelve of the most active years of my life, employed too in matters of the greatest importance; but whether I have been doing good or mischief is for time to discover. I only know that I intended well, and I hope all will end well.

"Be so good as to present my affectionate respects to Dr. Riley. I am under great obligations to him, and shall write to him shortly. It will be a pleasure to him to know, that my malady does not grow sensibly worse, and that is a great point: for it has always been so tolerable, as not to prevent my enjoying the pleasures of society, and being cheerful in conversation; I owe this in a great measure to his good counsels.

"B. FRANKLIN."

"To count Buffon, Paris.

"PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 19, 1787.

"DEAR SIR,- I am honoured by your letter, desiring to know by what means I am relieved

in a disorder, with which you are so unfortunately afflicted. I have tried all the noted prescriptions for diminishing the stone, without perceiving any good effect. But observing temperance in eating, avoiding wine and cider, and using daily the dumb bell, which exercises the upper part of the body without much moving the parts in contact with the stone, I think I have prevented its increase. As the roughness of the stone lacerates a little the neck of the bladder, I find that when the urine happens to be sharp, I have much pain in making water, and frequent urgencies. For relief under this circumstance, I take, going to bed, the bigness of a pigeon's egg of jelly of blackberries: the receipt for making it is enclosed. While I continue to do this every night, I am generally easy the day following, making water pretty freely, and with long intervals. I wish most sincerely that this simple remedy may have the same happy effect with you. Perhaps currant jelly, or the jelly of apples, or of raspberries, may be equally serviceable; for I suspect the virtue of the jelly may lie principally in the boiled sugar, which is in some degree candied by the boiling of the jelly.

Wishing you for your own sake much more ease, and for the sake of mankind many more years, I remain, with the greatest esteem and respect, dear sir, your most obedient and affectionate servant, B. FRANKLIN."

"To Mr. Small.

"PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 28, 1787. "DEAR SIR,-I received your kind letter of June 6, '86, and I answered it, though long after the receipt. I do not perceive by your second favour of July, '87, that my answer had then come to hand, but hope it may since that time.

"I have not lost any of the principles of public economy you once knew me possessed of; but to get the bad customs of a country changed, and new ones, though better, introduced, it is necessary first to remove the prejudices of the people, enlighten their ignorance, and convince them that their interest will be promoted by the proposed changes: and this is not the work of a day. Our legislators are all landholders; and they are not yet persuaded that all taxes are finally paid by the land. Besides, our country is so sparely settled, the habitations, particularly in the back countries, being perhaps five or six miles distant from each other, that the time and labour of the collector, in going from house to house, and being obliged to call often before he can recover the tax, amounts to more than the tax is worth, and therefore we have been forced into the mode of indirect taxes, i. e. duties on importation of goods, and excises.

"I have made no attempt to introduce the

form of prayer here, which you and good Mrs. Baldwin do me the honour to approve The things of this world take up too much of my time, of which indeed I have too little left to undertake any thing like a reformation in matters of religion. When we can sow good seed, we should however do it, and wait. when we can do no better, with patience, nature's time for their sprouting. Some lie many years in the ground, and at length certain favourable seasons or circumstances bring them forth with vigourous shoots and plentiful productions...

"Had I been at home, as you wish, soon after the peace, I might possibly have mitigated some of the severities. against the royalists, believing as I do, that fear and error, rather than malice, occasioned their desertion of their country's cause, and adoption of the king's. The public resentment against them is now so far abated, that none who ask leave to return are refused, and many of them now live among us much at their ease. As to the res toration of confiscated estates, it is an opera tion that none of our politicians have as yet ventured to propose. They are a sort of peo ple that love to fortify themselves in their projects by precedent. Perhaps they wait to see your government restore the forfeited estates in Scotland to the Scotch, those in Ireland to the Irish, and those in England to the Welch.

"I am glad that the distressed exiles who remain with you have received, or are likely to receive, some compensation for their losses, for I commiserate their situation. It was clearly incumbent on the king to indemnify those he had seduced by his proclamations; but it seems not so clearly consistent with the wisdom of parliament to resolve doing it for him. If some mad king should think fit ina freak to make war upon his subjects of Scot land, or upon those of England, by the help of Scotland and Ireland (as the Stuarts did,) may he not encourage followers by the precedent of those parliamentary gratuities, and thus set his subjects to cutting one another's throats, first with the hope of sharing in confiscations, and then with that of compensation in case of disappointment? The council of brutes, without a fable, were aware of this. Lest that fable may perhaps not have fallen in your way, I enclose a copy of it.

"Your commercial treaty with France seems to show a growing improvement in the sentiments of both nations in the economical science. All Europe might be a great deal happier with a little more understanding. We in America have lately had a convention for framing a new constitution. Enclosed I send you the result of their deliberations. Whether it will be generally acceptable, and carried into execution, is yet to be seen; but present appearances are in its favour.

"I am always glad to hear from you, and | He is now gone down the Ohio, to reconnoitre of your welfare. I remember with pleasure that country. the happy days we have spent together.Adieu, and believe me ever, my dear friend, yours most affectionately,

66

"B. FRANKLIN."

"To ****.

"PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 15, 1787.

I HOPE the disorders in Brabant and Holland may be rectified without bloodshed. But I fear the impending war with the Turks, if not prevented by prudent negociation, may in its consequences involve great part of Europe. I confide, however, that France and England will preserve their present peace with each other, notwithstanding some contrary appearances: for I think that they have both of them too much sense to go to war without an important cause, as well as too little money at

present.

"As to the projected conquest from Turkey, I apprehend, that if the emperor and empress would make some use of arithmetic, and calculate what annual revenues may be expect⚫ed from the country they want, should they acquire it, and then offer the grand signior a hundred times that annual revenue, to be paid down for an amicable purchase of it, it would be his interest to accept the offer, as well as theirs to make it, rather than a war for it should take place; since a war to acquire that territory and to retain it, will cost both parties much more, perhaps ten times more, than such sum of purchase money. But the hope of glory and the ambition of princes are not subject to arithmetical calculation. -My best wishes attend you; being with great esteem, sir, your most obedient and most humble

servant,

B. FRANKLIN.”

"To M. Veillard, Passy.

"PHILADELPHIA, Feb. 17, 1788.

* MY DEAR FRIEND,-I received your kind letter of June 23, by Mr. Saugrain, and it is the last of yours that is come to my hands. As you have so much leisure, and love writing, I cannot think you have been so long silent; you who are so good as to love me, and who know how much pleasure your letters always afford me. I therefore rather suspect you may probably have written something too freely concerning public affairs, and that your letters may be arrested in your post office, and yourself lodged in the bastile. You see I imagine, any thing however extravagant, rather than suppose, (as your letters too often do) that my friends forget me.

"I should have proceeded in the history you mention, if I could well have avoided accepting the chair of president for this third and last year: to which I was again elected by the unanimous voice of council and general assembly in November. If I live to see this year expire I may enjoy some leisure, which I promise you to employ in the work you do me the honour to urge so earnestly.

"I sent you with my last a copy of the new constitution proposed for the United States by the late general convention. I sent one also to our excellent friend the duke de la Rochefoucauld. I attended the business of the convention faithfully for four months. Enclosed you have the last speech I made in it. Six states have already adopted the constitution, and there is now little doubt of its being accepted by a sufficient number to carry it into execution, if not immediately by the whole. It has however met with great opposition in some states, for we are at present a nation of politicians. And though there is a general dread of giving too much power to our governors, I think we are more in danger from too little obedience in the governed.

war.

"We shall, as you suppose, have imposts on trade, and custom-houses, not because other nations have them, but because we cannot at We want to dispresent do without them. charge our public debt occasioned by the late the scantily settled inhabitants of our wide exDirect taxes are not so easily levied on tended country; and what is paid in the price of merchandise is less felt by the consumer, and less the cause of complaint. When we are out of debt we may leave our trade free, for our ordinary charges of government will not be great.

"Where there is a free government, and the people make their own laws by their representatives, I see no injustice in their obliging one another to take their own paper money. It is no more so than compelling a man by law to take his own note. But it is unjust to pay strangers with such money against their will. The making of paper money, with such a sanction, is however a folly, since although you may by law oblige a citizen to take it for his goods, you cannot fix his prices; and his liberty of rating them as he pleases, which is the same thing as setting what value he pleases on your money, defeats your sanction.

"I have been concerned to hear of the troubles in the internal government of the country I love; and hope some good may come out of them; and that they may end without mischief."

"In your letter to my grandson, you asked "I find Mr. Saugrain to answer well the some questions that had an appearance as if good character you give of him, and shall with you meditated a visit to us. Nothing in this pleasure render him any services in my power. | world would give me greater pleasure, than

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