tions. Be pleased to accept my grateful acknowledgments for the pleasure it has afforded me.

It is astonishing that the murderous practice of duelling, which you so justly condemn, should continue so long in vogue. Formerly, when duels were used to determine lawsuits, from an opinion that Providence would in every instance favor truth and right with victory, they were excusable. At present they decide nothing. A man says something which another tells him is a lie. They fight; but, whichever is killed, the point at dispute remains unsettled. To this purpose they have a pleasant little story here. A gentleman in a coffee-house desired another to sit farther from him. "Why so?" "Because, sir, you stink." "That is an affront, and you must fight me." "I will fight you, if you insist upon it; but I do not see how that will mend the matter. For if you kill me, I shall stink too; and if I kill you, you will stink, if possible, worse than you do at present." How can such miserable sinners as we are entertain so much pride, as to conceit that every offence against our imagined honor merits death? These petty princes in their own opinion would call that sovereign a tyrant who should put one of them to death for a little uncivil language, though pointed at his sacred person; yet every one of them makes himself judge in his own cause, condemns the offender without a jury, and undertakes himself to be the executioner. With sincere and great esteem, I have the honor to be, sir, etc.,

B. FRANKLIN.

P. S.-Our friend, Mr. Vaughan, may perhaps communicate to you some conjectures of mine relating to the cold of last winter, which I sent to him in return for the observations on cold of Professor Wilson. If he should, and you should think them worth so much notice, you may show them to your Philosophical Society,' to which I wish all imaginable success. Their rules appear to me excellent.

MCCXC

TO MESSRS. WEEMS AND GANT

PASSY, 18 July, 1784. GENTLEMEN:-On receipt of your letter, acquainting me that the Archbishop of Canterbury would not permit you to be ordained, unless you took the oath of allegiance, I applied to a clergyman of my acquaintance for information on the subject of your obtaining ordination here. His opinion was that it could not be done; and that if it were done, you would be required to vow obedience to the Archbishop of Paris. I next inquired of the Pope's Nuncio, whether you might not be ordained by their bishop in America, powers being sent him for that purpose, if he has them not already. The answer was: "The thing is impossible, unless the gentlemen become Catholics."

This is an affair of which I know very little, and therefore I may ask questions and propose means 'The Philosophical Society of Manchester, of which Dr. Percival was one of the principal founders and ornaments.-W. T. F.

that are improper or impracticable. But what is the necessity of your being connected with the Church of England? Would it not be as well if you were of the Church of Ireland? The religion is the same, though there is a different set of bishops and archbishops. Perhaps if you were to apply to the Bishop of Derry, who is a man of liberal sentiments, he might give you orders as of that Church. If both Britain and Ireland refuse you (and I am not sure that the bishops of Denmark or Sweden would ordain you unless you become Lutherans), what is then to be done? Next to becoming Presbyterians, the Episcopalian clergy of America, in my humble opinion, cannot do better than to follow the example of the first clergy of Scotland, soon after the conversion of that country to Christianity. When their king had built the Cathedral of St. Andrew's, and requested the king of Northumberland to lend his bishops to ordain one for them, that their clergy might not as heretofore be obliged to go to Northumberland for orders, and their request was refused, they assembled in the cathedral, and the mitre, crosier, and robes of a bishop being laid upon the altar, they, after earnest prayers for direction in their choice, elected one of their own number, when the king said to him: "Arise, go to the altar, and receive your office at the hand of God." His brethren led him to the altar, robed him, put the crosier in his hand, and the mitre on his head, and he became the first Bishop of Scotland.

If the British Islands were sunk in the sea (and the surface of this globe has suffered greater changes),

you would probably take some such method as this; and, if they persist in denying you ordination, it is the same thing. A hundred years hence, when people are more enlightened, it will be wondered at that men in America, qualified by their learning and piety to pray for and instruct their neighbors, should not be permitted to do it till they had made a voyage of six thousand miles out and home, to ask leave of a cross old gentleman at Canterbury, who seems, by your account, to have as little regard for the souls of the people of Maryland as King William's AtorneyGeneral, Seymour, had for those of Virginia. The Reverend Commissary Blair, who projected the college of that province, and was in England to solicit benefactions and a charter, relates that the queen, in the king's absence, having ordered Seymour to draw up the charter, which was to be given, with two thousand pounds in money, he opposed the grant, saying that the nation was engaged in an expensive war, that the money was wanted for better purposes, and he did not see the least occasion for a college in Virginia. Blair represented to him that its intention was to educate and qualify young men to be ministers of the Gospel, much wanted there, and begged Mr. Attorney would consider that the people of Virginia had souls to be saved, as well as the people of England. "Souls!" said he, "damn your souls! Make tobacco!" I have the honor to be, gentlemen, etc., B. FRANKLIN.

VOL. X.-24.

MCCXCI

FROM JOHN ADAMS

THE HAGUE, 19 July, 1784.

SIR: I have the honor of your letters of the 27th of June and 4th July, and should advise your Excellency to present the C. de Mercy a copy of the instructions you propose.

By the length of time we have been left without information respecting foreign affairs, and by other circumstances, there are greater divisions among our countrymen respecting these, as well as their finances, than are salutary. It is now near two years that I have led the life of a spider, after having led that of a toad under a harrow for four years before. But I swear I will not lead one nor the other much longer. I can't recollect that I have had a letter from Congress since the peace.

I read somewhere when I was young:

""T is expectation makes the blessing dear,

Heaven were not heaven, if we knew what it were."

But this expectation must not be disappointed continually.

Mr. Hartley will wait too, I apprehend, as long as we, and for my part I humbly propose that we should banish all thoughts of politics, and begin a course of experiments in physics or mechanics, of telescopical or microscopical observations. Bertholon and Spalanzini and Needham have so entertained me of late, that I think to devote myself to similar researches.