sires to be respectfully remembered to you. With the highest regard, I am ever yours, RICHARD PRICE. TO CHARLES THOMSON. DEAR FRIEND, Passy, 11 November, 1784. I received your kind letter of August 13th with the papers annexed, relative to the affair of Longchamps. I hope satisfaction will be given to M. Marbois. The Commissioners have written a joint letter to Congress. This serves to cover a few papers relative to matters with which I was particularly charged in the instructions. I shall write to you fully by the next opportunity, having now only time to add, that I am, as ever, yours most affectionately, B. FRANKLIN. P. S. I executed the instructions of October 29th, 1783, as soon as I knew the commissions for treating with the Emperor, &c. were issued, which was not till July, 1784. The three letters between the Emperor's minister and me are what passed on that occasion. FROM GEORGE WHATLEY TO B. FRANKLIN. Principles of Trade. - Foundling Hospitals. - Specta cles. Powers of Congress. Toleration. MY GOOD OLD FRIEND, London, 15 November, 1784. You flatter my vanity in thinking of having a translation made of The Principles of Trade. I have given to your grandson one of them, and I shall with pleasure send some copies to America. I should be glad to know what the success may be of the new institution at Paris for assisting women, so as to suckle their own children at home. I approve of it much; though I hold as an axiom, "that the children of poor or dishonest persons should be taken care of by the public in time, lest, instead of serving, they come to hurt the public either through distress or bad education, if it can be done without any violence to the natural right of the parent, as it is better to make men good than to hang those that are bad." You see the voluntary sending of children to the foundling hospital takes away the thought of any violence to the natural right; and to my mind, from whatever cause parents may divest themselves of their affection for their offspring, so as to put them away, it is the duty of the public to intervene and take up such offspring, upon the certain principle, that the number of subjects makes the riches of a State. By good luck, I find I have kept your original notes on the Principles of Trade, those we agreed in, those I added, and those I dissented from, and were not published; moreover, some other ideas you favored me with. This I told your grandson, and wished to confer with him thereon, as well for his improvement, as to convey to you what we differed in, for your reconsideration. I have prepared copies of those notes, and shall hope to collate them with your grandson. If not so done, you may depend I have faithfully copied them. Death is a concomitant of our existence. Your doctrine of our rising from it, or after it, refreshed in the morning, is what I do not comprehend. I have long contemplated the epitaph, thought to be written by the celebrated Mr. Pope, which allow me to send you, together with my paraphrase, if it may be so called. "Under this marble, or under this sill, Or under this turf, or e'en what they will; When we have considered things, and weighed them to the utmost extent of our faculties, we shall not, I apprehend, be able to say more, than that we can know nothing of what we were before we exist-. ed, nor can we more certainly or more positively say what shall become of us on our dissolution. It is therefore submitted, whether it be not greatly satisfactory to contemplate, and to trust in God, that what we were, we shall be. It is presumed, the utmost of all religion must be the trusting in God; consequently, this idea seems not to militate against pure religion. As to the almost infinite notions of mankind, by which the minds of men are warped and bent, they will be found mere nothings, if from them we take, as Dean Swift says of what is called the happiness of mortal men, their false lights, varnish, and tinsel. By way of speculation, I trouble you with a copy of an account I got from Paris of the number of foundling children there, received from 1741, the year of our beginning here, to the year 1755. I think it was obtained preparatory to the opening of our hospital, the 2d of June, 1756, for a general reception, to show what was done abroad. I should be glad if you could procure the subsequent years to 1783 inclusive. Whether it may be of any use, I know not; nevertheless, it would please me to have it. I have spoken to Dolland about your invention of double spectacles, and, by all I can gather, they can only serve for particular eyes, not in general. Dolland was to furnish me gratis with spectacles, thirty years ago, in virtue of my disinterested purchases of telescopes, for no small sums, for conjurers abroad. He has now done it, as I find spectacles are of use; though I can do without them tolerably, and part of this letter was wrote so. They, as I said, give ease, and that is what we ought to covet and desire. I long much to learn how the Philadelphia bank goes on. If your people will be pleased to let justice. be the compass by which they shall steer, they may do any thing. I think I can prove this to be for their true interest, in every shape. You know I lay down as a maxim, that interest should govern as well public as private affairs. It is all a farce to pretend, that it ought not. I hold your Cincinnati institution to be wrong, nor do I think those to blame, who are against giving a power to Congress inconsistent with liberty; for men are not to be trusted with power but with a jealous eye, and so guarded that nought but the general interest shall be the rule of action. If poor States in union with others cannot, by reason of their small means, acquiesce in measures judged to be for public benefit so readily as the richer, these should assist and help out those who are poor, either by loan or gift. I will suppose all readiness in both rich and poor to do their utmost; for, if that be wanting, there is a clear want of justice, and consequently a deviation from the true interest of the whole. I think the Abbé Raynal in some of his writings has said, "Establish no legal preference amongst the different forms of worship. Superstition is innocent, whenever it is neither persecuted nor protected." Whether such a principle can be brought into practice is doubtful; I fear it cannot. I full well remember what you told me long ago, of a place in Philadelphia built for whosoever might choose to talk in public, as some persons of a particular denomination had been refused holding forth, because they were of a certain color. How this doctrine may be relished in other parts, I know not; but, if mass has been said in Boston, I will hope there has been some relaxation, at least, in favor of the general interest of the State. Your grandson, upon my insinuating to him you were so desirably situated as not to leave Paris, tells me, you thought you would be more pleased and happy in America, where you might prosecute your philosophical studies. All I can say to this is, what I have read somewhere; "Happy only is he, who in mind lives contented; and he most of all unhappy, whom nothing that he hath can content." I am sure you cannot have more health, happiness, and contentment, than I sincerely wish you; and I shall ever be happy in having opportunities of showing with what respect and regard I am, dear Sir, your very affectionate friend, GEORGE WHATLEY. TO THOMAS JEFFERSON. Passy, 23 November, 1784. DEAR SIR, These people are so accustomed to see every thing done by solicitation of interest, or what they call protection, and nothing without it, that they hardly conceive it possible to obtain the payment even of a just debt, but by means of persons whom they suppose to have influence enough to support and enforce their |