to require explaining, if any such there were. He returned without effecting the settlement, being told that it would not be made till the arrival of some documents expected from France. What those documents were I have not been informed, nor can I readily conceive, as all the vouchers existing there had been examined by Mr. Barclay. And I having been immediately after my arrival engaged in public business of this state, I waited in expectation of hearing from congress, in case any part of my accounts had been objected to. "It is now more than three years that those accounts have been before that honourable body, and to this day no notice of any such objection has been communicated to me. But reports have for some time past been circulated here, and propagated in newspapers, that I am greatly indebted to the United States, for large sums, that had been put into my hands, and that I avoid a settlement. "This, together with the little time one of my age may expect to live, makes it necessary for me to request earnestly, which I hereby do, that the congress would be pleased, without further delay, to examine those accounts, and if they find therein any article or articles, which they do not understand or approve, that they would cause me to be acquainted with the same, that I may have an opportunity of offering such explanations or reasons in support of them as may be in my power, and then that the account may be finally closed. "I hope the congress will soon be able to attend to this business for the satisfaction of the public, as well as in condescension to my request. In the meantime, if there be no impropriety in it, I would desire that this letter, together with another on the same subject, the copy of which is hereto annexed, may be put upon their minutes. "B. FRANKLIN." "To the Printer of the Evening Herald. "SIR,-The British news-writers are very assiduous in their endeavours to blacken America. Should we not be careful not to afford them any assistance by censures of one another, especially by censures not well founded. "I lately observed in one of your papers, the conduct of the state of Massachusetts reflected on, as being inconsistent and absurd, as well as wicked, for attempting to raise a tax by a stamp act, and for carrying on the slave trade. "The writer of those reflections might have considered, that their principal objection to the stamp tax, was, its being imposed by a British parliament, which had no right to tax them; for otherwise a tax by stamps is perhaps to be levied with as little inconvenience as any other that can be invented. Ireland has a stamp act of its own; but should Britain pretend to impose such a tax on the Irish people they would probably give a general opposition to it, and ought not for that to be charged with inconsistence. "One or two merchants in Boston, employing ships in the abominable African trade, may deservedly be condemned, though they do not bring their slaves home, but sell them in the West Indies. The state as such, has never, that I have heard of, given encouragement to the diabolical commerce; and there has always been fewer slaves in the New England governments, than in any other British colonies. National reflections are seldom just, and a whole people should not be decried for the crimes of a few individuals. "Your inserting this may make that brave people some amends, and will oblige one of your customers, who is "A PENNSYLVANIAN." "Mr. Small. 46 PHILADELPHIA, Feb. 17, 1789. "DEAR FRIEND,-I have just received your kind letter of Nov. 29, and am much obliged by your friendly attention in sending me a receipt, which on occasion I may make trial of; but the stone I have being a large one, as I find by the weight it falls with when I turn in bed, I have no hope of its being dissoluble by any medicine; and having been for some time past pretty free from pain, I am afraid of tampering. I congratulate you on the escape you had by voiding the one you mention, that was as big as a kidney bean; had it been retained it might soon have become too large to pass, and proved the cause of much pain at times, as mine has been to me. 66 Having served my time of three years as president, I have now renounced all public business, and enjoy the otium cum dignitate. My friends indulge me with their frequent visits, which I have now leisure to receive and enjoy. The Philosophical Society, and the Society for Political Inquiries meet at my house, which I have enlarged by an additional building, that affords me a large room for those meetings, another over it for my library, now very considerable, and over all some lodging rooms. I have seven promising grandchildren by my daughter, who play with and amuse me, and she is a kind attentive nurse to me, when I am any time indisposed; so that I pass my time as agreeably as at my age (83) a man may well expect, and have little to wish for, except a more easy exit than my malady seems to threaten. "The deafness you complain of gives me concern, as if great it must diminish considerably your pleasure in conversation. If moderate you may remedy it easily and readily by putting your thumb and fingers behind your ear, pressing it outwards, and enlarging it as it were with the hollow of your hand. By an exact experiment I found that I could hear the tick of a watch at forty-five feet distance by this means, which was barely audible at twenty feet without it. The experiment was made at midnight when the house was still. "I am glad you have sent those directions respecting ventilation to the Edinburgh Society. I hope you have added an account of the experience you had of it at Minorca. If they do not print your paper, send it to me, and it shall be in the third volume, which we are about to publish, of our Transactions. 64 'Mrs. Hewson joins with us in best wishes for your health and happiness. Her eldest son has gone through his studies at our college, and takes his degree. The youngest is still there, and will be graduated this summer. My grandson presents his respects; and I am ever, my dear friend, yours most affectionately, B. FRANKLIN." 66 "PHILADELPHIA, March 2, 1789. "DEAR FRIEND, Having now done with public affairs, which have hitherto taken up so much of my time, I shall endeavour to enjoy during the small remainder of life that is left to me some of the pleasures of conversing with my old friends by writing, since their distance prevents my hope of seeing them again. "I received one of the bags of sweet corn you was so good as to send me a long time since, but the other never came to hand; even the letter mentioning it, though dated December 10, 1787, has been above a year on its way, for I received it but about two weeks since from Baltimore in Maryland. The corn I did receive was excellent, and gave me great pleasure. Accept my hearty thanks. "I am, as you suppose, in the above mentioned old letter, much pleased to hear that my young friend Ray is 'smart in the farming way,' and makes such substantial fences. I think agriculture the most honourable of all employments, being the most independent. The farmer has no need of popular favour, nor the favour of the great. The success of his crops depending only on the blessing of God upon his honest industry. I congratulate your good spouse, that he as well as myself is now free from public cares, and that he can bend his whole attention to his farming, which will afford him both profit and pleasure; a business which nobody knows better how to manage with advantage. I am too old to follow printing again myself, but loving the business, I have brought up my grandson Benjamin to it, and have built and furnished a printing-house for him, which he now manages under my eye. I have great pleasure in the rest of my grandchildren, who are now in number eight, and all promising, the youngest only six months old, but shows signs of great good nature. My friends here are numerous, and I enjoy as much of their conversation as I can reasonably wish; and I have as much health and cheerfulness as can well be expected at my age, now eighty-three. Hitherto this long life has been tolerably happy, so that if I were allowed to live it over again, I should make no objection, only wishing for leave to do, what authors do in a second edition of their works, correct some of my errata. Among the felicities of my life I reckon your friendship, which I shall remember with pleasure as long as that life lasts, being ever, my dear friend, yours most affectionately, "B. FRANKLIN.” “Miss Catherine Louisa Shipley. "PHILADELPHIA, April 27, 1789. "IT is only a few days, since the kind letter of my dear young friend, dated December 24, came to my hands. I had before in the public papers met with the afflicting news that letter contained. That excellent man has then left us !-his departure is a loss not to his family and friends only, but to his nation, and to the world: for he was intent on doing good, had wisdom to devise the means, and talents to promote them. His sermon before the Society for Propagating the Gospel, and his speech intended to be spoken,' are proofs of his ability as well as his humanity. Had his counsels in those pieces been attended to by the ministers, how much bloodshed might have been prevented, and how much expense and disgrace to the nation avoided? "Your reflections on the constant calmness and composure attending his death are very sensible. Such instances seem to show, that the good sometimes enjoy in dying a foretaste of the happy state they are about to enter. "According to the course of years, I should have quitted this world long before him: I shall however not be long in following. I am now in my eighty-fourth year, and the last year has considerably enfeebled me; so that I hardly expect to remain another. You will then, my dear friend, consider this as probebly the last line to be received from me, and as a taking leave. "Present my best and most sincere respects to your good mother, and love to the rest of the family, to whom I wish all happiness; and believe ine to be, while I do live, yours most affectionately, B. FRANKLIÑ.” 66 Dr. Price. "PHILADELPHIA, May 31, 1789. "MY VERY DEAR FRIEND,-I lately received your kind letter, enclosing one from Miss Kitty Shipley, informing me of the good bishop's decease, which afflicted me greatly. My friends drop off one after another, when my age and infirmities prevent my making new ones, and if I still retained the necessary activity and ability, I hardly see among the existing generation where I could make them of equal goodness. So that the longer I live I must expect to be the more wretched. As we draw nearer the conclusion of life, nature furnishes with more helps to wean us from it, among which one of the most powerful is the loss of such dear friends. 66 I send you with this the two volumes of our Transactions, as I forget whether you had the first before. If you had, you will please to give this to the French ambassador, requesting his conveyance of it to the good duke de la Rochefoucauld.-My best wishes attend you, being ever with sincere and great esteem, my dear friend, yours most affectionately, B. FRANKLIN." "B. Vaughan. "PHILADELPHIA, June 3, 1789. "MY DEAREST FRIEND,-I received your kind letter of March 4, and wish I may be able to complete what you so earnestly desire, the Memoirs of my Life. But of late I am so interrupted by extreme pain, which obliges me to have recourse to opium, that between the effects of both, I have but little time in which I can write any thing. My grandson, however, is copying what is done, which will be sent to you for your opinion by the next vessel; and not merely for your opinion but for your advice; for I find it a difficult task to speak decently and properly of one's own conduct and I feel the want of a judicious friend to encourage me in scratching out. "I have condoled sincerely with the bishop of St. Asaph's family. He was an excellent man. Loosing our friends thus one by one, is the tax we pay for long living; and it is indeed a heavy one! "I have not seen the king of Prussia's posthumous works; what you mention makes me desirous to have them. Please to mention it to your brother William, and that I request he would add them to the books I have desired him to buy for me. "Our new government is now in train, and seems to promise well. But events are in the hand of God! I am ever, my dear friend, yours most affectionately, VOL. I....4 I "B. FRANKLIN." Mr. Wright, London. "PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 4, 1789. "DEAR FRIEND,-I received your kind letter of July the 31st, which gave me great pleasure, as it informed me of the welfare both of yourself and your good lady, to whom please to present my respects. I thank you for the epistle of your yearly meeting, and for the card (a specimen of printing) which was enclosed. "We have now had one session of congress, which was conducted under our new constitution, and with as much general satisfaction as could reasonably be expected. I wish the struggle in France may end as happily for that nation. We are now in the full enjoyment of our new government for eleven of the states, and it is generally thought that North Carolina is about to join it. Rhode Island will probably take longer time for consideration.-We have had a most plentiful year for the fruits of the earth, and our people seem to be recovering fast from the extravagance and idle habits which the war had introduced; and to engage seriously in the contrary habits, of temperance, frugality, and industry, which give the most pleasing prospect of future national felicity. Your merchants, however, are I think imprudent in crowding in upon us such quantities of goods for sale here, which are not written for by ours, and are beyond the faculties of this country to consume in any reasonable time. This surplus of goods is therefore, to raise present money, sent to vendues, or auction houses, of which we have six or seven in and near this city; where they are sold frequently for less than prime cost, to the great loss of the indiscreet adventurers. Our newspapers are doubtless to be seen at your coffee-houses near the exchange: in their advertisements you may observe the constancy and quantity of these kind of sales; as well as the quantity of goods imported by our regular traders. I see in your English newspapers frequent mention of our being out of credit with you; to us it appears that we have abundantly too much, and that your exporting merchants are rather out of their senses. "I wish success to your endeavours for obtaining an abolition of the slave trade. The epistle from your yearly meeting for the year 1758, was not the first sowing of the good seed you mention; for I find by an old pamphlet in my possession, that George Keith, near a hundred years since, wrote a paper against the practice, said to be given forth by the appointment of the meeting held by him, at Philip James's house in the city of Philadelphia, about the year 1693; wherein a strict charge was given to friends, that they should set their negroes at liberty after some reasonable time of service, &c. &c." 1 me. "I am obliged by your kind inquiries after my health, which is still tolerably good, the stone excepted; my constitution being such as, if it were not for that malady, might have held out yet some years longer. And about the year 1728, or '29, I myself Franklin, Esq., as he did not show himself to printed a book for Ralph Sandyford, another of your friends of this city, against keeping negroes in slavery; two editions of which he distributed gratis. And about the year 1736 I printed another book on the same subject for Benjamin Lay, who also professed being one of your friends, and he distributed the books chiefly among them. By these instances it appears that the seed was indeed sown in the good ground of your profession, (though much earlier than the time you mention) and its springing up to effect at last, though so late, is some confirmation of lord Bacon's observation, that a good motion never dies; and may encourage us in making such; though hopeless of their taking immediate effect. "I doubt whether I shall be able to finish my Memoirs, and if I finish them, whether they will be proper for publication: you seem to have too high an opinion of them, and to expect too much from them. "I think you are right in preferring a mixed form of government for your country, under its present circumstances; and if it were possible for you to reduce the enormous salaries and emoluments of great offices (which are at bottom the source of all your violent factions) that form might be conducted more quietly and happily: but I am afraid that none of your factions, when they get uppermost, will ever have virtue enough to reduce those salaries and emoluments, but will rather choose to enjoy them. "B. FRANKLIN." "Dr. Rush. "PHILADELPHIA. [without date, but supposed to be in 1789.] MY DEAR FRIEND,-During our long acquaintance you have shown many instances of your regard for me, yet I must now desire you to add one more to the number, which is, that if you publish your ingenious discourse on the moral sense, you will totally omit and suppress that most extravagant encomium on your friend Franklin, which hurt me exceedingly in the unexpected hearing, and will mortify me beyond conception, if it should appear from the press. "Confiding in your compliance with this earnest request, I am ever, my dear friend, yours most affectionately, "B. FRANKLIN." "Samuel More. "PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 5, 1789. "DEAR SIR, I received your favour of July 25, but had no opportunity of showing any civility to the bearer whom you mention as coming under the auspices of William "I hope the fire of liberty which you mention as spreading itself over Europe, will act upon the inestimable rights of man, as common fire does upon gold, purify without destroying them; so that a lover of liberty may find a country in any part of Christendom! "I see with pleasure in the public prints, that our society is still kept up and flourishes. I was an early member; for when Mr. Shipley sent me a list of the subscribers, they were but seventy; and though I had no expectation then of ever going to England, and acting with them, I sent a contribution of twenty guineas; in consideration of which the society were afterwards pleased to consider me a member. "I wish to the exertions of your manufacturers, who are generally excellent; and to the spirit and enterprise of your merchants, who are famed for fair and honourable dealing, all the success they merit in promoting the prosperity of your country. "I am glad our friend Small enjoys so much health, and his faculties so perfectly, as I perceive he does by his letters. I know not whether he is yet returned from his visit to Scotland, and therefore give you the trouble of the enclosed. "My best wishes attend you, being ever, dear sir, your most obedient servant, "B. FRANKLIN.” "I have long been of your opinion, that your legal provision for the poor is a very great evil, operating as it does to the encouragement of idleness. We have followed your example, and begin now to see our error; and I hope shall reform it.—I find by your letters that every man has patience enough to bear calmly and coolly the injuries done to other people: you have perfectly for i given the royalists, and you seem to wonder that we should still retain any resentment against them for their joining with the sa- I vages to burn our houses, and murder and scalp our friends, our wives, and our children. tures, and Commerce, of which Mr. More was secretary. *The London Society for promoting Arts, Manufac 1 "Great part of the news we have had from Paris, for near a year past, has been very afflicting. I sincerely wish and pray it may I forget who it was that said, 'we are com- | heard from my dear friend Le Roy. What Inanded to forgive our enemies, but we are can be the reason? Are you still living? or no where commanded to forgive our friends;' have the mob of Paris mistaken the head certain it is, however, that atrocious injuries of a monopolizer of knowledge, for a monopodone to us by our friends are naturally more lizer of corn, and paraded it about the streets deeply resented than the same done by ene- upon a pole? mies. They have left us to live under the government of their king in England and Nova Scotia. We do not miss them, nor wish their return; nor do we envy them their pre-all end well and happily both for the king and sent happiness.-The accounts you give me the nation. The voice of Philosophy, I apof the great prospects you have respecting prehend, can hardly be heard among those your manufactures, agriculture, and com- tumults. If any thing material in that way merce, are pleasing to me, for I still love had occurred, I am persuaded you would have England, and wish it prosperity. acquainted me with it. However, pray let me hear from you a little oftener; for though the distance is great, and the means of conveying letters not very regular, a year's silence between friends must needs give uneasiness. "You tell me that the government of France is abundantly punished for its treachery to England in assisting us; you might also have remarked, that the government of England had been punished for its treachery to France, in assisting the Corsicans, and in seizing her ships in time of full peace, without any previous declaration of war. I believe governments are pretty near equal in honesty, and cannot with much propriety praise their own in preference to that of their neigh-for bours. "You do me too much honour in naming me with Timoleon. I am like him only inretiring from my public labours, which indeed my stone, and other infirmities of age, have made indispensably necessary. "I hope you are by this time returned from your visit to your native country, and that the journey has given a firmer consistence to your health. "Mr. Penn's property in this country, which you inquire about, is still immensely great; and I understand he has received ample compensation in England for the part he lost. "I think you have made a happy choice of rural amusements; the protection of the bees, and the destruction of the hop insect. I wish success to your experiments, and shall be glad to hear the result. Your theory of insects appears the most ingenious and plausible of any that have hitherto been proposed by philosophers. "Our new constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said be certain, except death and taxes! t 66 My health continues much as it has been some time, except that I grow thinner and weaker, so that I cannot expect to hold out much longer. "My respects to your good brother, and to our friends of the academy, which always has my best wishes for its prosperity and glory.— Adieu, my dear friend, and believe me ever, yours most affectionately, 66 B. FRANKLIN." “David Hartley. "PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 4, 1789. "MY VERY DEAR FRIEND,-I received your favour of August last. Your kind condolences, on the painful state of my health, are very obliging. I am thankful to God, however, that among the numerous ills human life is subject to, one only of any importance is fallen to my lot; and that so late as almost to insure that it can be but of short duration. 66 The convulsions in France are attended "Our new, constitution is now established with some disagreeable circumstances; but with eleven states, and the accession of a if by the struggle she obtains and secures for twelfth is soon expected. We have had one the nation its future liberty, and a good consession of congress under it, which was constitution, a few years enjoyment of those blessducted with remarkable prudence, and a good deal of unanimity. Our late harvests were plentiful, and our produce still fetches a good price, through an abundant foreign demand, and the flourishing state of our commerce.-I am ever, my dear friend, yours most affectionately, B. FRANKLIN." ings will amply repair all the damages their acquisition may have occasioned. God grant that not only the love of liberty, but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man, may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot any where on its surface, and say, this is my country! Your wishes for a cordial and perpetual friendship between Britain and her ancient colonies, are manifested continually in every one of your letters to me; something of my disposition on ""Tis now more than a year since I have the same subject may appear to you in casting "Mr. Le Roy, Paris. "PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 13, 1789. |