my absence in Europe, and the very kind welcome they are pleased to give me on my return, demand my most grateful. acknowledgments; which I beg they would be pleased to accept, with my warmest wishes of success to their laudable endeavors for the promoting of useful knowledge among us, to which I shall be happy if I can in any degree contribute.

To the Hon. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, Esq. LL. D. &c.

The Address of the Provost, V. Provost, and Professors of the University of Pennsylvania.

HONORED SIR,

1

The Provost, V. Provost, and Professors of the University of Pennsylvania, beg leave to congratulate you on your safe arrival in your native country, after having accomplished the duties of your exalted character with dignity and

success.

1

While we participate in the general happiness of America, to the establishment of which your political abilities and patriotic exertions have so signally contributed; we feel a particular pleasure in paying our acknowledgments to the gentleman who first projected the liberal plan of the institution over which we have the honor to preside.

Not contented with enriching the world with the most important discoveries in natural philosophy, your benevolence and liberality of sentiment early engaged you to make provision for exciting a spirit of inquiry into the secret operations of nature; for exalting and refining the genius of America, by the propagation of useful learning; and for qualifying many of her sons to make that illustrious figure which has commanded the esteem and admiration of the most polished nations of Europe.

Among the many benevolent projections which have laid so ample a foundation for the esteem and gratitude of your native country, permit this seminary to reckon her first establishment, upon the solid principles of equal liberty, as one of the most considerable and important: and now, when restored through the influence of our happy constitution, to her original broad and catholic bottom; when enriched by the protection and generous donations of a public-spirited and patriotic assembly; and when florishing under the countenance of the best friends of religion, learning, and liberty in the state; she cannot but promise herself the continued patronage of the evening of that life which divine Providence has so eminently distinguished.

May the same indulgent Providence yet continue your protracted life, enriched and crowned with the best of blessings, to nurse and cherish this favorite child of your youth; that the future sons of science in this western world may have additional reason to remember the name of FRANKLIN with gratitude and pleasure.

Signed, in the name and by order of the Faculty, by Philadelphia, Sept. 16, 1785.

JOHN EWING, Provost.

DR. FRANKLIN'S ANSWER.

I am greatly obliged, Gentlemen, by your kind congratulations on my safe arrival.

It gives me extreme pleasure to find, that seminaries of learning are increasing in America, and particularly that the university over which you preside, continues to florish. My best wishes will always attend it.

The instruction of youth is one of those employments which to the public are most useful; it ought therefore to be esteemed among the most honorable: its successful exercise does not, however, always meet with the reward it merits,

except in the satisfaction of having contributed to the forming of virtuous and able men for the service of their country.

The constitutional society of Philadelphia, the justices of the city, the officers of the militia, and several other bodies, presented to Dr. Franklin on his arrival, addresses of congratulation nearly similar; and shortly after he received the following letter from that illustrious character, General Washington:

DEAR SIR,

Mount Vernon, Sept. 25, 1785.

Amid the public gratulations on your safe return to America, after a long absence, and the many eminent services you have rendered it-for which as a benefited person I feel the obligation-permit an individual to join the public voice in expressing his sense of them; and to assure you, that as no one entertains more respect for your character, so none can salute you with more sincerity or with greater pleasure than I do on the occasion.

I am, dear Sir,

your most obedient and most humble servant,

The Hon. Dr. Franklin.

G. WASHINGTON.

Soon after Dr. Franklin's arrival in Philadelphia, he was chosen a member of the supreme executive council of that city; and shortly after was elected president of the state of Pennsylvania; which honorable situation he filled the whole time allowed by the constitution, viz. three successive years.

When a general convention of the states was summoned to meet in Philadelphia, in 1787, for the purpose of giving more energy to the government of the Union, by revising and amending the articles of confederation, Dr. Franklin was appointed a delegate from the state of Pennsylvania to that convention; as such he signed the new constitution agreed on for the United States, and gave it the most unequivocal marks of his approbation.

The following Notes and Remarks, drawn up by Dr. Franklin, together with the substance of some of his speeches in this convention, will be found of considerable interest; and on this account, as well as to show his general ideas on government, are here inserted.

PROPOSAL FOR CONSIDERATION.

June 26, 1787.

That the legislatures of the several states shall choose

who

and send an equal number of delegates, namely are to compose the second branch of the general legislature.

That in all cases or questions wherein the sovereignties of the individual states may be affected, or whereby their authority over their own citizens may be diminished, or the authority of the general government within the several states augmented, each state shall have equal suffrage.

That in the appointment of all civil officers of the general government, in the election of whom the second branch may by the constitution have part, each state shall have equal Suffrage.

That in fixing the salaries of such officers, in all allowances for public services, and generally in all appropriations and

dispositions of money to be drawn out of the general treasury, and in all laws for supplying the treasury, the delegates of the several states shall have suffrage in proportion to the sums their respective states had actually contributed to that treasury from their taxes or internal excises.

That in case general duties should be laid by impost on goods imported, a liberal estimation shall be made of the amount of such impost paid in the price of the commodities by those states that import but little, and a proportionate addition shall be allowed of suffrage to such states, and an equal diminution of the suffrage of the states importing.

REMARKS.

THE steady course of public measures is most probably to be expected from a number.

A single person's measures may be good.. The successor often differs in opinion of those measures, and adopts others. Often is ambitious of distinguishing himself by opposing them, and offering new projects. One is peaceably disposed; another may be fond of war, &c. Hence foreign states can never have that confidence in the treaties or friendship of such a government, as in that which is conducted by a number.

The single head may be sick; who is to conduct the public affairs in that case? When he dies, who are to conduct till a new election? If a council, why not continue them? Shall we not be harassed with factions for the election of successors? become, like Poland, weak from our dissensions?

Consider the present distracted condition of Holland. They had at first a stadtholder, the Prince of Orange, a man of undoubted and great merit. They found some inconveniences, however, in the extent of powers annexed to that office, and exercised by a single person. On his death, they resumed and divided those powers among the states and cities; but