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salary will be duly honored. I mention your drawing on him, because probably I may not be here, as I expect daily the permission of Congress to return home, and shall embrace the first opportunity. Wherever I am, be assured of the invariable esteem and attachment of, dear Sir, your affectionate friend,

B. FRANKLIN.

SIR,

TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS.

Passy, 12 April, 1785.

M. de Chaumont, who will have the honor of presenting this line to your Excellency, is a young gentleman of excellent character, whose father was one of our most early friends in this country, which he manifested by crediting us with a thousand barrels of gunpowder and other military stores in 1776, before we had provided any apparent means of payment. He has, as I understand, some demands to make on Congress, the nature of which I am unacquainted with; but my regard for the family makes me wish, that they may obtain a speedy consideration, and such favorable issue as they may appear to merit.

To this end, I beg leave to recommend him to your countenance and protection, and am, with great respect, &c. B. FRANKLIN.

TO BENJAMIN VAUGHAN.

Manufactures. -Books.Loose Printing.

DEAR FRIEND,

Passy, 21 April, 1785.

I received your kind letter of the 23d past, by Mr. Perry, with the other bottle of Blackrie. I thank you much for your care in sending them. I should have been glad to be of any use to Mr. Perry; but he had placed his children before I saw him, and he stayed with me only a few minutes.

We see much in parliamentary proceedings, and in papers and pamphlets, of the injury the concessions to Ireland will do to the manufacturers of England, while the people of England seem to be forgotten, as if quite out of the question. If the Irish can manufacture cottons, and stuffs, and silks, and linens, and cutlery, and toys, and books, &c. &c. &c., so as to sell them cheaper in England than the manufacturers of England sell them, is not this good for the people of England, who are not manufacturers? And will not even the manufacturers themselves share the benefit? Since if cottons are cheaper, all the other manufacturers who wear cottons will save in that article; and so of the rest. If books can be had much cheaper from Ireland, (which I believe, for I bought Blackstone there for twenty-four shillings, when it was sold in England at four guineas,) is not this an advantage, not to English booksellers, indeed, but to English readers, and to learning? And of all the complainants, perhaps these booksellers are least worthy of consideration. catalogue you last sent me amazes me by the high prices (said to be the lowest) affixed to each article. And one can scarce see a new book, without observ

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ing the excessive artifices made use of to puff up a paper of verses into a pamphlet, a pamphlet into an octavo, and an octavo into a quarto, with scab-boardings, white-lines, sparse titles of chapters, and exorbitant margins, to such a degree, that the selling of paper seems now the object, and printing on it only the pretence. I enclose the copy of a page in a late comedy. Between every two lines there is a white space equal to another line. You have a law, I think, against butchers blowing of veal to make it look fatter; why not one against booksellers' blowing of books to make them. look bigger. All this to yourself; you can easily guess the reason.

My grandson is a little indisposed, but sends you two pamphlets, Figaro, and Le Roy Voyageur. The first is a play of Beaumarchais, which has had a great run here. The other a representation of all the supposed errors of government in this country, some of which are probably exaggerated. It is not publicly sold; we shall send some more shortly.

Please to remember me very respectfully and affectionately to good Dr. Price. I am glad that he has printed a translation of the Testament, it may do good I am ever, my dear friend, yours most sincerely,

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I remember nothing; I shall soon forget my Christian name."

If this page was printed running on like Erasmus's Colloquies, it would not have made more than five lines.

TO JOHN INGENHOUSZ.

Invitation to accompany him to America. Idle Stories about that Country. - Emperor of Germany.

Passy, 29 April, 1785.

DEAR SIR, I thank you much for the postscript respecting my disorder, the stone. I have taken heretofore, and am now again taking the remedy you mention, which is called Blackrie's Solvent. It is the soap lie, with limewater, and I believe it may have some effect in diminishing the symptoms, and preventing the growth

of the stone, which is all I expect from it. It does not hurt my appetite; I sleep well, and enjoy my friends in cheerful conversation as usual. But, as I cannot use much exercise, I eat more sparingly than formerly, and I drink no wine.

I admire, that you should be so timid in asking leave of your good imperial master to make a journey for visiting a friend. I am persuaded you would succeed, and I hope the proposition I have repeated to you in this letter will assist your courage, and enable you to ask and obtain. If you come hither soon, you may, when present, get your book finished, and be ready to proceed with me to America. While writing this, I have received from Congress my leave to return; and I believe I shall be ready to embark by the middle of July, at farthest. I shall now be free from politics for the rest of my life. Welcome again, my dear philosophical amusements!

I see by a full page of your letter, that you have been possessed with strange ideas of America; that there is no justice to be obtained there, no recovery of debts, projects of insurrection to overturn the present government, &c. &c.; that a Virginia colonel, nephew of the governor, had cheated a stranger of a hundred thousand livres, and that somebody was imprisoned for only speaking of it; and the like very improbable stories. They are all fictions or misrepresentations. If they were truths, all strangers would avoid such a country, and foreign merchants would as soon carry their goods to sell in Newgate as America. Think a little on the sums England has spent to preserve a monopoly of the trade of that people, with whom they had long been acquainted; and of the desire all Europe is now manifesting to obtain a share of that trade. Our ports are full of their ships, their mer

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