punch drinkers in our West Indies. I had before acquainted Dr. Baker with a fact of that kind, the general mischief done by the use of lead worms, when rum-distilling was first practised in New England, which occasioned a severe law there against them; and he has mentioned it in the 2d part of the piece not yet published. I have long been of opinion, that this distemper proceeds always from a metallic cause only, observing that it affects, among tradesmen those that use lead, however different their trades, as glaciers, letter founders, plumbers, potters, white lead makers, and painters; (from the latter, it has been conjectured, it took its name Colica Pictonum, by the mistake of a letter and not from its being the disease of Picton ;) and although the worms of stills ought to be of pure tin, they are often made of pewter, which has a mixture in it of lead.

The Boston people pretending to interfere with the manufactures of this country, makes a great clamor here against America in general. I have endeavored therefore to palliate matters a little in several public papers. It would as you justly observe give less umbrage if we meddled only with such manufactures as England does not attend to. That of linen might be carried on more or less in every family, (perhaps it can only do in a family way,) and silk I think in most of the colonies. But there are many manufactures that we cannot carry on to advantage, though we were at entire liberty. And after all this country is fond of manufactures beyond their real value; for the true source of riches is husbandry. Agriculture is truly productive of new wealth; manufactures only change forms; and whatever value they give to the material they work upon, they in the mean time consume an equal value of provisions, &c. So that riches are not increased by manufacturing; the only

advantage is that provisions in the shape of manufactures are more easily carried for sale in foreign markets. And where the provisions cannot be easily carried to market, it is well so to transform them for our own use as well as for foreign sale. In families also where the children and servants of farmers have some spare time, it is well to employ it in making something; and in spinning or knitting, &c., to gather up fragments (of time) that nothing may be lost; for these fragments, though small in themselves, amount to something great in the year and the family must eat whether they work or are idle.

But this nation seems to have increased the number of its manufactures beyond reasonable bounds (for there are bounds to every thing) whereby provisions are now risen to an exorbitant price by the demand for supplying home mouths; so that there may be an importation from foreign countries; but the expense of bringing provisions from abroad to feed. manufacturers here will so enhance the price of the manufactures that they may be made cheaper where the provisions grow and the mouths will go to the meat.*

Το William
Franklin, da-

ted London,

13

1768.

The purpose of settling the new colonies seems at present to be dropped, the change of March, American administration not appearing favorable to it. There seems rather to be an inclination to abandon the posts in the back country, as more expensive than useful; but counsels are so continually fluctuating here, that nothing can be depended on. The

* There is so little in all Franklin's writings or sayings to prepare us for any one of the crudities here massed together, that we should require very little evidence to convince us that the latter part of this letter is spurious, or that the philosopher was not clothed and in his right mind when he wrote it.—ED.

new secretary, my Lord Hillsborough, is, I find, of opinion, that the troops should be placed, the chief part of them, in Canada and Florida, only three battalions to be quartered in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania; and that Forts Pitt, Oswego, Niagara, &c., should be left to the colonies to garrison and keep up, if they think it necessary, for the protection of their trade. Probably his opinion may be followed, if the new changes do not produce other ideas.

As to my own sentiments, I am weary of suggesting them to so many different inattentive heads, though I must continue to do it while I stay among them. The letters from Sir William Johnson, relating to the boundary, were at last found, and orders were sent over about Christmas for completing the purchase and settlement of it. My Lord Hillsborough has promised me to send duplicates by this packet, and urge the speedy execution, as we represented to him the danger, that these dissatisfactions of the Indians might produce a war. But I can tell you, there are many here, to whom the news of such a war would give pleasure; who speak of it as a thing to be wished; partly as a chastisement to the colonies, and partly to make them feel the want of protection from this country, and pray for it. For it is imagined, that we could not possibly defend ourselves against the Indians without such assistance; so little is the state of America understood here.

My Lord Hillsborough mentioned the "Farmer's Letters' to me, said he had read them, that they were well written, and he believed he could guess who was the author, looking in my face at the same time, as if he thought it was me. He censured the doctrines as extremely wild. I have read them as far as No. 8. I know not if any more have been published. I should have thought they

I

had been written by Mr. Delancey, not having heard any mention of the others you point out as joint authors.* am not yet master of the idea these and the New England writers have of the relation between Britain and her colonies. I know not what the Boston people mean by the "subordination" they acknowledge in their Assembly to Parliament, while they deny its power to make laws for them, nor what bounds the Farmer sets to the power he acknowledges in Parliament to "regulate the trade of the colonies," it being difficult to draw lines between duties for regulation and those for revenue; and, if the Parliament is to be the judge, it seems to me that establishing such principles of distinction will amount to little.

The more I have thought and read on the subject, the more I find myself confirmed in opinion, that no middle doctrine can be well maintained, I mean not clearly with intelligible arguments. Something might be made of either of the extremes; that Parliament has a power to make all laws for us, or that it has a power to make no laws for us; and I think the arguments for the latter more numerous and weighty, than those for the former. Supposing that doctrine established, the colonies would then be so many separate states, only subject to the same king, as England and Scotland were before the union. And then the question would be, whether a union like that with Scotland would or would not be advantageous to the whole. I should have no doubt of the affirmative, being fully persuaded that it would be best for the whole, and that though particular parts might

*The "Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania" were written by John Dickenson, and published the following year in England, with a preface by Dr. Franklin.-ED.

find particular disadvantages in it, they would find greater advantages in the security arising to every part from the increased strength of the whole. But such union is not likely to take place, while the nature of our present relation is so little understood on both sides of the water, and sentiments concerning it remain so widely different.

As to the Farmer's combating, as you say they intend to do, my opinion, that the Parliament might lay duties though not impose internal taxes, I shall not give myself the trouble to defend it. Only to you, I may say, that not only the Parliament of Britain, but every state in Europe, claims and exercises a right of laying duties on the exportation of its own commodities to foreign countries. A duty is paid here on coals exported to Holland, and yet England has no right to lay an internal tax on Holland. All goods brought out of France to England, or any other country, are charged with a small duty in France, which the consumers pay, and yet France has no right to tax other counAnd in my opinion the grievance is not that Britain. puts duties upon her own manufactures exported to us, but that she forbids us to buy the like manufactures from any other country. This she does, however, in virtue of her allowed right to regulate the commerce of the whole empire, allowed I mean by the Farmer, though I think whoever would dispute that right might stand upon firmer ground, and make much more of the argument; but my reasons are too many and too long for a letter.

Mr. Grenville complained in the House, that the governors of New Jersey, New Hampshire, East and West Florida, had none of them obeyed the orders sent them, to give an account of the manufactures carried on in their respective provinces. Upon hearing this, I went after the