observing temperance in eating, avoiding wine and cider, and using daily the dumb-bell, which exercises the upper part of the body without much moving the parts in contact with the stone, I think I have prevented its increase.

As the roughness of the stone lacerates a little the neck of the bladder, I find that, when the urine happens to be sharp, I have much pain in making water and frequent urgencies. For relief under these circumstances, I take, going to bed, the bigness of a pigeon's egg of jelly of blackberries. The receipt for making it is enclosed. While I continue to do this every night, I am generally easy the day following, making water pretty freely, and with long intervals. I wish most sincerely that this simple remedy may have the same happy effect with you. Perhaps currant jelly, or the jelly of apples or of raspberries, may be equally serviceable; for I suspect the virtue of the jelly may lie principally in the boiled sugar, which is in some degree candied by the boiling of the jelly. Wishing you for your own sake much more ease, and for the sake of mankind many more years, I remain with the greatest esteem and respect, dear sir, your most obedient and affectionate servant, B. FRANKLIN.

MCCCCLXXXVIII

TO MRS. JANE MECOM

PHILADELPHIA, II December, 1787.

DEAR SISTER:-Since I wrote to you last your son Collas has been here from North Carolina, where he

kept a store, but it has not answered his expectations. He wanted to take up goods on credit here, but could not obtain any unless I would recommend it to our merchants to give it, which I could not do without making myself liable, and that I did not incline to do, having no opinion either of the honesty and punctuality of the people with whom he proposed to traffic, or of his skill and acuteness in merchandizing. I wrote this merely to apologize for any seeming unkindness on my part in not so promoting his views.

You always tell me that you live comfortably; but I sometimes suspect that you may be too unwilling to acquaint me with any of your difficulties from an apprehension of giving me pain. I wish you would let me know precisely your situation, that I may better proportion my assistance to your wants. Have you any money at interest, and what does it produce? Or do you do some kind of business for a living? If you have hazarded any of your stock in the above-mentioned trading project, I am afraid you will have but slender returns. Lest you should be straitened during the present winter, I send you on corner of this sheet a bill of exchange on our cousin, Tuthill Hubbart, for fifty dollars, which you can cut off and present to him for payment.

The barrel of flour I formerly mentioned to you as sent was not then sent, through the forgetfulness or neglect of the merchant who promised to send it. But I am told it is now gone, and I hope will arrive safe.

I received your late letter, with one from my dear

now live among us much at their ease. As to the restoration of confiscated estates, it is an operation that none of our politicians have as yet ventured to propose. They are a sort of people that love to fortify themselves in their prospects by precedent. Perhaps they wait to see your government restore the forfeited estates in Scotland to the Scotch, those in Ireland to the Irish, and those in England to the Welsh.

I am glad that the distressed exiles who remain with you have received, or are likely to receive, some compensation for their losses, for I commiserate their situation. It was clearly incumbent on the king to indemnify those he had seduced by his proclamations; but it seems not so clearly consistent with the wisdom of Parliament to resolve doing it for him. If some mad king should think fit, in a freak, to make war upon his subjects of Scotland, or upon those of England, by the help of Scotland and Ireland, as the Stuarts did, may he not encourage followers by the precedent of these parliamentary gratuities, and thus set his subjects to cutting one another's throats, first with the hope of sharing in confiscations, and then with that of compensation in case of disappointment? The council of brutes without a fable were aware of this. Lest that fable may perhaps not have fallen in your way, I enclose a copy of it.

Your commercial treaty with France seems to show a growing improvement in the sentiments of both nations in the economical science. All Europe might be a great deal happier with a little more

MCCCCLXXXI

A COMPARISON OF THE CONDUCT OF THE ANCIENT JEWS, AND OF THE ANTI-FEDERALISTS IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A zealous advocate for the proposed Federal Constitution in a certain public assembly said that "the repugnance of a great part of mankind to good government was such that he believed that if an angel from heaven was to bring down a constitution formed there for our use, it would nevertheless meet with violent opposition." He was reproved for the supposed extravagance of the sentiment, and he did not justify it. Probably it might not have immediately occurred to him that the experiment had been tried, and that the event was recorded in the most faithful of all histories, the Holy Bible; otherwise he might, as it seems to me, have supported his opinion by that unexceptionable authority.

The Supreme Being had been pleased to nourish up a single family by continued acts of his attentive providence till it became a great people, and, having rescued them from bondage by many miracles, performed by his servant Moses, he personally delivered to that chosen servant, in presence of the whole nation, a constitution and code of laws for their observance, accompanied and sanctioned with promises of great rewards, and threats of severe punishments, as the consequence of their obedience or disobedience.

This constitution, though the Deity himself was to be at its head (and it is therefore called by political writers a theocracy), could not be carried into execu

the impossibility of agreeing to them. His views were different. He wanted to allay every possible scruple, and make their votes unanimous. Some of the sentiments of the address were as follows:

"We have been long together. Every possible objection has been combated. With so many different and contending interests it is impossible that any one can obtain every object of their wishes. We have met to make mutual sacrifices for the general good, and we have at last come fully to understand each other, and settle the terms. Delay is as unnecessary as the adoption is important. I confess it does not fully accord with my sentiments, but I have lived long enough to have often experienced that we ought not to rely too much on our own judgments. I have often found I was mistaken in my most favorite ideas. I have upon the present occasion given up, upon mature reflection, many points which at the beginning I thought myself immovably and decidedly in favor of. This renders me less tenacious of the remainder; there is a possibility of my being mistaken. The general principle which has presided over our deliberations now guides my sentiments. I repeat, I do materially object to certain points, and have already stated my objections; but I do declare that these objections shall never escape me without doors; as, upon the whole, I esteem the Constitution to be the best possible that could have been formed under present circumstances; and that it ought to go abroad with one united signature, and receive every support and countenance from us. I trust none will refuse to sign it; if they do, they will