MDXI

TO MESSRS. BENJ. CHAMBERS, AND THE OTHER GENTLEMEN OF CHAMBERSBURGH

PHILADELPHIA, 20 September, 1788.

GENTLEMEN:-I received the letter you did me the honor of writing to me, respecting what was supposed a new invention, the blowing of furnaces by a fall of water. When Mr. Zantzinger delivered me your letter, I told him that I had several books in my library which described the same contrivance, and I have since shown them to him. They are the French Encyclopedia or Dictionary of Arts and Sciences; Swedenborg's Latin treatise of iron works; and the French work Des Arts et des Métiers, in the article of forges. Those descriptions are all accompanied with figures in copper plate, which demonstrate the invention to be the same precisely in all its essential parts; and in the accounts of it, it is said to have been first practised in Italy about one hundred years since; whence it was brought into France, where it is now much used; thence into Sweden and Germany: and I remember to have been informed by a Spaniard who was here forty years ago, and gave me a drawing of it, that it was practised in some parts of Mexico, in their furnaces for smelting their silver ore. This being the case, you see, gentlemen, that Mr. McClintock cannot properly be recommended to the assembly as the discoverer of something new. It is, however, not an uncommon thing for ingenious men in different ages, as well as in different countries, to hit upon the same contrivance

without knowing or having heard what has been done by others; and Mr. McClintock has at least the merit of having introduced the knowledge of this useful invention into this part of America, and of demonstrating by his own example its practicability. I am, gentlemen, with great regard, your most obedient and most humble servant,

B. FRANKLIN.

MDXII

FROM CHARLOTTE FILANGIERI

NAPLES, 27 September, 1788.

SIR:-Attribute this long delay to my grief, and sympathize with me in my affliction. The Chevalier Gaetano Filangieri, my husband and my friend, is no more. He died on the 21st of July, in the flower of his age, the victim of a cruel disease, and with him my happiness has gone. He has left three children, with no other patrimony than the memory of his virtues and his reputation. If the letter which you wrote to him on the 14th of October, 1787, had reached him before the 1st of July, the day on which the disease attacked him, he would not have failed to answer it, and to send you the copies of his work on legislation which you had requested. I shall myself perform what would have been his wish, and you will receive, through the channel which you pointed out to him, all that you desire. The little that remains of his immortal work will shortly be printed, and I shall deem it a duty to send it to you as soon

as it comes from the press. I shall also have the melancholy pleasure of sending you, at the same time, the history of his life, and a selection from the best of his writings.

Accept, sir, the assurance of the high consideration and the sincere respect so fully your due, with which I have the honor to be, etc.,

CHARLOTTE FILANGIERI.'

MDXIII

TO THE DUKE DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

PHILADELPHIA, 22 October, 1788.

Our public affairs begin to wear a more quiet aspect. The disputes about the faults of the new Constitution are subsided. The first Congress will probably mend the principal ones, and future Congresses the rest. That which you mentioned did not pass unnoticed in the convention. Many, if I remember right, were for making the President incapable of being chosen after the first four years; but the majority were for leaving the electors free to choose whom they pleased; and it was alleged that such incapacity might tend to make the President less attentive to the duties of his office, and to the interests of the people, than he would be if a second choice

1 Filangieri died at the age of thirty-six. His great work was left unfinished; but the deficiency has been in some degree supplied by Benjamin Constant, who added to the Paris edition of 1822 a volume entitled Commentaire sur l'Ouvrage de Filangieri. See note to letter to Filangieri, January 11, 1783.-EDITOR,

depended on their good opinion of him. We are making experiments in politics; what knowledge we shall gain by them will be more certain, though perhaps we may hazard too much in that mode of acquiring it.

Having now finished my turn of being President, and promising myself to engage no more in public business, I hope to enjoy the small remains of life that are allowed me, in the repose I have so long wished for. I purpose to employ it in completing the personal history you mention. It is now brought down to my fiftieth year. What is to follow will be of more important transactions; but it seems to me what is done will be of more general use to young readers, exemplifying strongly the effects of prudent and imprudent conduct in the commencement of a life of business.

B. FRANKLIN.

MDXIV

TO MADAME LAVOISIER

PHILADELPHIA, 23 October, 1788.

I have a long time been disabled from writing to my dear friend, by a severe fit of the gout, or I should sooner have returned my thanks for her very kind present of the portrait, which she has herself done me the honor to make of me. It is allowed by those who have seen it to have great merit as a picture in every respect; but what particularly en

I The memoirs of his life.

dears it to me is the hand that drew it. Our English enemies, when they were in possession of this city and my house, made a prisoner of my portrait, and carried it off with them, leaving that of its companion, my wife, by itself, a kind of widow. You have replaced the husband, and the lady seems to smile as well pleased.

It is true, as you observe, that I enjoy here every thing that a reasonable mind can desire, a sufficiency of income, a comfortable habitation of my own building, having all the conveniences I could imagine; a dutiful and affectionate daughter to nurse and take care of me, a number of promising grandchildren, some old friends still remaining toconverse with, and more respect, distinction, and public honors than I can possibly merit. These are the blessings of God, and depend on his continued goodness; yet all do not make me forget Paris, and the nine years' happiness I enjoyed there, in the sweet society of a people whose conversation is instructive, whose manners are highly pleasing, and who, above all the nations of the world, have, in the greatest perfection, the art of making themselves beloved by strangers. And now, even in my sleep, I find that the scenes of all my pleasant dreams are laid in that city, or in its neighborhood.

I like much young M. Dupont. He appears a very sensible and valuable man. and I think his father will have a great deal of satisfaction in him.

Please to present my thanks to M. Lavoisier for the Nomenclature Chimique he has been so good as to send me (it must be a very useful book), and assure