bouring villages, with each a child in her arms.

But

those, who are good enough to try this way of raising their children, are often not able to pay the expense; so that the prisons of Paris are crowded with wretched fathers and mothers confined pour mois de nourrice, though it is laudably a favorite charity to pay for them, and set such prisoners at liberty. I wish success to the new project of assisting the poor to keep their children at home, because I think there is no nurse like a mother (or not many), and that, if parents did not immediately send their infants out of their sight, they would in a few days begin to love them, and thence be spurrred to greater industry for their maintenance. This is a subject you understand better than I, and, therefore, having perhaps said too much, I drop it. I only add to the notes a remark, from the History of the Academy of Sciences, much in favor of the Foundling Institution.

The Philadelphia bank goes on, as I hear, very well. What you call the Cincinnati Institution is no institution of our government, but a private convention among the officers of our late army, and so universally disliked by the people, that it is supposed it will be dropped. It was considered as an attempt to establish something like an hereditary rank or nobility. I hold with you, that it was wrong; may I add, that all descending honors are wrong and absurd; that the honor of virtuous actions appertains only to him that performs them, and is in its nature incommunicable. If it were communicable by descent, it must also be divisible among the descendants; and the more ancient the family, the less would be found existing in any one branch of it; to say nothing of the greater chance of unlucky interruptions.*

See letter to Mrs. Bache, dated January 26th, 1784, above, p. 58.

Our constitution seems not to be well understood with you. If the Congress were a permanent body, there would be more reason in being jealous of giving it powers. But its members are chosen annually, cannot be chosen more than three years successively, nor more than three years in seven; and any of them may be recalled at any time, whenever their constituents shall be dissatisfied with their conduct.* They are of the people, and return again to mix with the people, having no more durable preeminence than the different grains of sand in an hourglass. Such an assembly cannot easily become dangerous to liberty. They are the servants of the people, sent together to do the people's business, and promote the public welfare; their powers must be sufficient, or their duties cannot be performed. They have no profitable appointments, but a mere payment of daily wages, such as are scarcely equivalent to their expenses; so that, having no chance for great places, and enormous salaries or pensions, as in some countries, there is no canvassing or bribing for elections.

I wish Old England were as happy in its government, but I do not see it. Your people, however, think their constitution the best in the world, and affect to despise ours. It is comfortable to have a good opinion of one's self, and of every thing that belongs to us; to think one's own religion, king, and wife, the best of all possible wives, kings, or religions. I remember three Greenlanders, who had travelled two years in Europe under the care of some Moravian missionaries, and had visited Germany, Denmark, Holland, and England. When I asked them at Philadelphia, where they were in their way home, whether, now they had

These were the provisions of the old confederation. VOL. X.

12

seen how much more commodiously the white people lived by the help of the arts, they would not choose to remain among us; their answer was, that they were pleased with having had an opportunity of seeing so many fine things, but they chose to LIVE in their own country. Which country, by the way, consisted of rock only, for the Moravians were obliged to carry earth in their ship from New York, for the purpose of making a cabbage garden.

By Mr. Dollond's saying, that my double spectacles can only serve particular eyes, I doubt he has not been rightly informed of their construction. I imagine it will be found pretty generally true, that the same convexity of glass, through which a man sees clearest and best at the distance proper for reading, is not the best for greater distances. I therefore had formerly two pair of spectacles, which I shifted occasionally, as in travelling I sometimes read, and often wanted to regard the prospects. Finding this change troublesome, and not always sufficiently ready, I had the glasses cut, and half of each kind associated in the same circle, thus,

Least convex,
for distant objects.

Least convex.

Most convex,
for reading.

Most convex.

By this means, as I wear my spectacles constantly, I have only to move my eyes up or down, as I want to see distinctly far or near, the proper glasses being always ready. This I find more particularly convenient since my being in France, the glasses that serve me

best at table to see what I eat, not being the best to see the faces of those on the other side of the table who speak to me; and when one's ears are not well accustomed to the sounds of a language, a sight of the movements in the features of him that speaks helps to explain; so that I understand French better by the help of my spectacles.

My intended translator of your piece, the only one I know who understands the subject, as well as the two languages, (which a translator ought to do, or he cannot make so good a translation,) is at present occupied in an affair that prevents his undertaking it; but that will soon be over. I thank you for the notes. I should be glad to have another of the printed pamphlets.

We shall always be ready to take your children, if you send them to us. I only wonder, that, since London draws to itself, and consumes such numbers of your country people, the country should not, to supply their places, want and willingly receive the children you have to dispose of. That circumstance, together with the multitude who voluntarily part with their freedom as men, to serve for a time as lackeys, or for life as soldiers, in consideration of small wages, seems to me proof that your island is over-peopled. And yet it is afraid of emigrations! Adieu, my dear friend, an believe me ever yours very affectionately,

B. FRANKLIN.

I owe you my most cordial acknowledgments for the very friendly letter, with which you favored me last summer by Mr. Smeathman. Your ingenious manuscript concerning the cause of the severe cold in the winter of 1783-4 I delivered to our Philosophical Society, and it is ordered by the committee of papers to be inserted in a volume of Memoirs, which is now in the press.* I am commissioned to return the thanks of the Society to you for this communication, to request your future correspondence, and to acquaint you, that we have honored our Institution by electing you an extraordinary member.

The gentleman, who took charge of your diploma, conveys it with a little tract of mine on the Perceptive Power of Vegetables. To the whimsical doctrine contained in this jeu d'esprit, you will readily believe I can hardly be a convert. Yet, the further we carry our researches into the comparative nature of animals and vegetables, the more shall we find that they elucidate the economy of each other, and reciprocally discover principles, which are common to both. Late observations have evinced, that animals have the power of resisting, to a certain point, such degrees of heat or cold as are injurious to them. It is obvions, that vegetables must be endued with the same faculty, because they are found to flourish in climates where the

* See this paper in the present work, Vol. VI. p. 455.