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bird, and withal a true original native of America. Eagles have been found in all countries, but the turkey was peculiar to ours; the first of the species seen in Europe being brought to France by the Jesuits from Canada, and served up at the wedding-table of Charles IX. He is besides (though a little vain and silly, 't is true, but not the worse emblem for that) a bird of courage, and would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his farm-yard with a red coat on.

I shall not enter into the criticisms made upon their Latin. The gallant officers of America may not have the merit of being great scholars, but they undoubtedly merit much as brave soldiers from their country, which should, therefore, not leave them merely to fame for their virtutis premium, which is one of their Latin mottoes. Their esto perpetua —another - is an excellent wish, if they meant it for their country; bad, if intended for their order. The States should not only restore to them the omnia of their first motto,* which many of them have left and lost, but pay them justly, and reward them generously. They should not be suffered to remain, with all their new-created chivalry, entirely in the situation of the gentleman in the story which their omnia reliquit reminds me of. You know everything makes me recollect some story. He had built a very fine house, and thereby much impaired his fortune. He had a pride, however, in showing it to his acquaintance. One of them, after viewing it all, remarked a motto over the door - OIA VANITAS. "What," says he, "is the meaning of this OIA? 'Tis a word I don't understand." 'I will tell you," said the gentleman: "I had a mind to have the motto cut on a piece of smooth marble, but there was not room for it, between the ornaments, to be put in characters large enough to be read. I therefore made use of a contraction, anciently very common in Latin manuscripts, whereby the m's and n's in words are omitted, and the omission noted by a little dash above, which you may see there, so that the word is แ OMNIA VANITAS. "O," said his friend, "I now comprehend the meaning of your motto, it relates to your edifice, and signifies that if you have abridged your omnia, you have nevertheless left your VANITAS legible at full length.' I am, as ever, your affectionate father, B. FRANKLIN.

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* Omnia reliquit servare rempublicam,

[TO DR. MATHER, BOSTON.]

Cotton Mather. - Anecdote — On visiting Boston.

PASSY, May 12, 1784.

REV. SIR: I received your kind letter, with your excellent advice to the people of the United States, which I read with great pleasure, and hope it will be duly regarded. Such writings, though they may be lightly passed over by many readers, yet, if they make a deep impression on one active mind in a hundred, the effects may be considerable. Permit me to mention one little instance, which, though it relates to myself, will not be quite uninteresting to you. When I was a boy I met with a book entitled "Essays to do Good," which, I think, was written by your father. It had been so little regarded by a former possessor that several leaves of it were torn out, but the remainder gave me such a turn of thinking as to have an influence on my conduct through life; for I have always set a greater value on the character of a doer of good than on any other kind of reputation; and if I have been, as you seem to think, a useful citizen, the public owes the advantage of it to that book.

You mention your being in your seventy-eighth year: I am in my seventy-ninth; we are grown old together. It is now more than sixty years since I left Boston, but I remember well hoth your father and grandfather, having heard them both in the pulpit, and seen them in their houses. The last time I saw your father was in the beginning of 1724, when I visited him after my first trip to Pennsylvania. He received me in his library, and, on my taking leave, showed me a shorter way out of the house through a narrow passage, which was crossed by a beam overhead. We were still talking as I withdrew, he accompanying me behind, and I turning partly towards him, when he said, hastily, "Stoop, stoop!" I did not understand him till I felt my head hit against the beam. He was a man that never missed any occasion of giving instruction, and upon this he said to me, " You are young, and have the world before you: STOOP as you go through

it, and you may miss many hard thumps." This advice, thus beat into my head, has frequently been of use to me; and I often think of it, when I see pride mortified, and misfortunes brought upon people, by their carrying their heads too high.

I long much to see again my native place, and to lay my bones there. I left it in 1723; I visited it in 1733, 1743, 1753, and 1763. In 1773 I was in England; in 1775 I had a

sight of it, but could not enter, it being in possession of the enemy. I did hope to have been there in 1783, but could not obtain my dismission from this employment here; and now I fear I shall never have that happiness. My best wishes, however, attend my dear country. Esto perpetua. It is now blest with an excellent constitution; may it last forever !

This powerful monarchy continues its friendship for the United States. It is a friendship of the utmost importance to our security, and should be carefully cultivated. Britain has not yet well digested the loss of its dominion over us, and has still at times some flattering hopes of recovering it. Accidents may increase those hopes, and encourage dangerous attempts. A breach between us and France would infallibly bring the English again upon our backs; and yet we have some wild heads among our countrymen, who are endeavoring to weaken that connection! Let us preserve our reputation by performing our engagements; our credit, by fulfilling our contracts; and friends, by gratitude and kindness; for we know not how soon we may again have occasion for all of them. With great and sincere esteem, I have the honor to be, &c., B. FRANKLIN.

[TO B. VAUGHAN.]

American Extravagance

Anecdote- Commerce - Forest Lands

Elements of Wealth.

PASSY, July 26, 1784.

*

You ask "what remedy I have for the growing luxury of my country, which gives so much offence to all English travellers, without exception." I answer that I think it exaggerated, and that travellers are not good judges whether our luxury is growing or diminishing. Our people are hospitable, and have indeed too much pride in displaying upon their tables before strangers the plenty and variety that our country affords. They have the vanity too of sometimes borrowing one another's plate to entertain more splendidly. Strangers, being invited from house to house, meeting every day with a feast, imagine what they see is the ordinary way of living of all the families where they dine, when perhaps each family lives a week after upon the remains of the dinner given.

It is, I own, a folly in our people to give such offence to English travellers, The first part of the proverb is thereby veri

fied, that fools make feasts. I wish in this case the other were as true, and wise men eat them. These travellers might, one would think, find some fault they could more decently reproach us with than that of our excessive civility to them as strangers.

I have not, indeed, yet thought of a remedy for luxury; I am not sure that in a great state it is capable of a remedy, nor that the evil is in itself always so great as it is represented. Suppose we include in the definition of luxury all unnecessary expense, and then let us consider whether laws to prevent such expense are possible to be executed in a great country, and whether, if they could be executed, our people generally would be happier, or even richer. Is not the hope of one day being able to purchase and enjoy luxuries a great spur to labor and industry? May not luxury therefore produce more than it consumes, if without such a spur people would be, as they are naturally enough inclined to be, lazy and indolent? To this purpose, I remember a circumstance.

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The skipper of a shallop, employed between Cape May and Philadelphia, had done us some small service, for which he refused pay. My wife, understanding that he had a daughter, sent her as a present a new-fashioned cap. Three years after, the skipper being at my house, with an old farmer of Cape May, his passenger, he mentioned the cap, and how much his daughter had been pleased with it. But," said he, " it proved a dear cap to our congregation." "How so?" "When my daughter appeared in it at meeting, it was so much admired that all the girls resolved to get such caps from Philadelphia; and my wife and I computed that the whole could not cost less than a hundred pounds." True," said the farmer, "but you do not tell all the story. I think the cap was nevertheless an advantage to us; for it was the first thing that set our girls upon knitting worsted mittens for sale at Philadelphia, that they might have wherewithal to buy caps and ribbons there; and you know that that industry has continued, and is likely to continue and increase to a much greater value, and answer better purposes." Upon the whole, I was more reconciled to this little piece of luxury, since not only the girls were made happier by having fine caps, but the Philadelphians by the supply of warm mittens.

In our commercial towns upon the sea-coast, fortunes will occasionally be made. Some of those who grow rich will be prudent, live within bounds, and preserve what they have gained for their posterity. Others, fond of showing their wealth, will be extravagant and ruin themselves. Laws cannot prevent this, and perhaps it is not always an evil to the public. A shilling

spent idly by a fool may be picked up by a wiser person, who knows better what to do with it: it is therefore not lost.

A vain, silly fellow builds a fine house, furnishes it richly, lives in it expensively, and in a few years ruins himself; but the masons, carpenters, smiths, and other honest tradesmen, have been by his employ assisted in maintaining and raising their families; the farmer has been paid for his labor and encouraged, and the estate is now in better hands. In some cases, indeed, certain modes of luxury may be a public evil, in the same manner as it is a private one. If there be a nation, for instance, that exports its beef and linen to pay for its importations of claret and porter, while a great part of its people live upon potatoes and wear no shirts, wherein does it differ from the sot who lets his family starve, and sells his clothes to buy drink? Our American commerce is, I confess, a little in this way. We sell our victuals to your islands for rum and sugar; the substantial necessaries of life for superfluities. But we have plenty and live well, nevertheless, though by being soberer we might be richer.

By the by, here is just issued an arrêt of council, taking off all the duties upon the exportation of brandies, which, it is said, will render them cheaper in America than your rum; in which case there is no doubt but they will be preferred, and we shall be better able to bear your restrictions on our commerce. There are views here, by augmenting their settlements, of being able to supply the growing people of America with the sugar that may be wanted there. On the whole, I believe England will get as little by the commercial war she has begun with us as she did by the military. But to return to luxury.

The vast quantity of forest lands we have yet to clear and put in order for cultivation will for a long time keep the body of our nation laborious and frugal. Forming an opinion of our people and their manners by what is seen among the inhabitants of the seaports, is judging from an improper sample. The people of the trading towns may be rich and luxurious, while the country possesses all the virtues that tend to private happiness and public prosperity. Those towns are not much regarded by the country; they are hardly considered as an essential part of the States; and the experience of the last war has shown that their being in possession of the enemy did not necessarily draw on the subjection of the country, which bravely continued to maintain its freedom and independence, notwithstanding.

It has been computed, by some political arithmetician, that if every man and woman would work four hours each day in something useful, that labor would produce sufficient to procure all

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