been applied to your life, and the passing moments of it have been enlivened with content and enjoyment, instead of being tormented with foolish impatience or regrets. Such a conduct is easy for those, who make virtue and themselves their standard, and who try to keep themselves in countenance by examples of other truly great men, of whom patience is so often the characteristic.

"Your Quaker correspondent, Sir, (for here again I will suppose the subject of my letter resembling Dr. Franklin,) praised your frugality, diligence, and temperance, which he considered as a pattern for all youth; but it is singular that he should have forgotten your modesty, and your disinterestedness, without which you never could have waited for your advancement, or found your situation in the mean time comfortable; which is a strong lesson to show the poverty of glory, and the importance of regulating our minds.

"If this correspondent had known the nature of your reputation as well as I do, he would have said, your former writings and measures would secure attention to your biography and Art of Virtue; and your biography and Art of Virtue, in return, would secure attention to them. This is an advantage attendant upon a various character, and which brings all that belongs to it into greater play; and it is the more useful, as perhaps more persons are at a loss for the means of improving their minds and characters, than they are for the time or the inclination to do it.

"But there is one concluding reflection, Sir, that will show the use of your life as a mere piece of biography. This style of writing seems a little gone out of vogue, and yet it is a very useful one; and your specimen of it may be particularly serviceable, as it will make a subject of comparison with the lives of various pub

lic cut-throats and intriguers, and with absurd monastic self-tormentors, or vain literary triflers. If it encourages more writings of the same kind with your own, and induces more men to spend lives fit to be written, it will be worth all Plutarch's Lives put together."

But, being tired of figuring to myself a character of which every feature suits only one man in the world, without giving him the praise of it; I shall end my letter, my dear Dr. Franklin, with a personal application to your proper self.

I am earnestly desirous then, my dear Sir, that you should let the world into the traits of your genuine character, as civil broils may otherwise tend to disguise or traduce it. Considering your great age, the caution of your character, and your peculiar style of thinking, it is not likely that any one besides yourself can be sufficiently master of the facts of your life, or the intentions of your mind.

Besides all this, the immense revolution of the present period will necessarily turn our attention towards the author of it; and when virtuous principles have been pretended in it, it will be highly important to show that such have really influenced; and, as your own character will be the principal one to receive a scrutiny, it is proper (even for its effects upon your vast and rising country, as well as upon England and upon Europe), that it should stand respectable and eternal. For the furtherance of human happiness, I have always maintained, that it is necessary to prove that man is not even at present a vicious and detestable animal; and still more to prove, that good management may greatly amend him; and it is for much the same reason, that I am anxious to see the opinion established, that there are fair characters existing

among the individuals of the race; for the moment that all men, without exception, shall be conceived abandoned, good people will cease efforts deemed to be hopeless, and perhaps think of taking their share in the scramble of life, or at least of making it comfortable principally for themselves.

Take then, my dear Sir, this work most speedily into hand; show yourself good as you are good, temperate as you are temperate; and above all things, prove yourself as one, who, from your infancy, have loved justice, liberty, and concord, in a way that has made it natural and consistent for you to have acted, as we have seen you act in the last seventeen years of your life. Let Englishmen be made not only to respect, but even to love you. When they think well of individuals in your native country, they will go nearer to thinking well of your country; and, when your countrymen see themselves well thought of by Englishmen, they will go nearer to thinking well of England. Extend your views even further; do not stop at those who speak the English tongue, but, after having settled so many points in nature and politics, think of bettering the whole race of men.

As I have not read any part of the life in question, but know only the character that lived it, I write somewhat at hazard. I am sure, however, that the life, and the treatise I allude to on the Art of Virtue, will necessarily fulfil the chief of my expectations; and still more so, if you take up the measure of suiting these performances to the several views above stated. Should they even prove unsuccessful in all that a sanguine admirer of yours hopes from them, you will at least have framed pieces to interest the human mind; and whoever gives a feeling of pleasure that is innocent to man, has added so much to the fair side of a life

otherwise too much darkened by anxiety, and too much injured by pain.

In the hope therefore that you will listen to the prayer addressed to you in this letter, I beg to subscribe myself, my dearest Sir, &c.

BENJAMIN VAUGHAN.

FROM THE EARL OF BUCHAN TO B. FRANKLIN.

Emigration from Scotland to the United States.

SIR,

Edinburgh, 18 February, 1783.

You were entitled to a civic crown on my account a great many years ago, when, at the University of St. Andrews, you gave a turn to the career of a disorder, which then threatened my life. You have, since that time, done so much, and Heaven has at last been pleased to bless and crown your endeavours with so much success, that civic crowns of a more important nature are due to you, and certainly await you, if there is any such thing as public gratitude on the face of the earth.

Many of my acquaintances in this part of the world seem disposed to seek for an asylum on the other side of the Atlantic; and, knowing my steady attachment and affection to a people, who received my great-grandfather when an exile, or rather a fugitive from his country, during the administration of Lauderdale in Scotland, have applied to me for information on the subject of settling in the United States.

Before the troubles commenced, I had meditated a settlement on the estates of the Lord Fairfax in Virginia; but, Lord Fairfax being since dead, and my

connexions altered in that family, I have not thought of renewing my inquiries in that quarter.*

What I wish to promote is the happy settlement of my countrymen in North America, in the territory of the United States; such countrymen being friends to the principles, which gave independence to that country; persons also of good characters and virtuous conduct, who find themselves cramped and unhappy in a country, now very unfit for the residence of such individuals, as have not very a considerable fortune to attach them to home. I foresee a spirit of emigration, and I wish as much as possible to give it a direction, which may tend to the happiness of those, in whom, from a similarity of sentiment, I must necessarily find myself very much interested. I have the honor and pleasure to be, Sir, with great respect and attachment, &c. BUCHAN.

FROM M. ROSENCRONE, MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS IN DENMARK, TO M. DE WALTERSTORF.

Respecting a Treaty of Commerce between Denmark and the United States.

SIR,

Translation.

Copenhagen, 22 February, 1783.

As I know you are on the point of making a tour to France, I cannot omit warmly recommending to you to endeavour, during your stay at Paris, to gain as much as possible the confidence and esteem of Mr. Franklin.

* For an account of Lord Fairfax, and his estates in Virginia, see SPARKS's edition of Washington's Writings, Vol. I. p. 12; Vol. II. p. 182,