page 31 to page 42 inclusive; and to collect and get ready also one third of the other articles mentioned in the said pages, which I have marked with a red line in the margin, the whole to be sent by the first good opportunity. I think it would be well also to send five thousand more good fusils, with fifty tons of lead, and two hundred thousand flints for fusils. If these could go with the fleet, it would be of great service. More powder is not necessary to be sent at present, as there goes in the Marquis de Lafayette the remainder of the two thousand barrels granted last year, and also two hundred tons of saltpetre, which they will make into powder. For the other articles that may be wanted, as Colonel Laurens will come fully instructed, as well by the list given to him, as from his own observation and experience in the army, and from the information he will receive from General Washington, with whom and the Marquis de Lafayette he was to consult before his departure, I conceive it will be best to wait a little for his arrival. I return the lists, and, having by some unaccountable accident mislaid and lost the paper you gave me, containing what Count de Vergennes said to me yesterday, I must beg the favor of you to repeat it, and send it by the bearer. I am ashamed to give you this trouble, but I wish to be exact in what I am writing of it to Congress. With the greatest esteem, &c. B. FRANKLIN. APPENDIX. No. I. p. 367. A FRAGMENT OF POLYBIUS• From his Treatise on the Athenian Government. ATHENS had long been an object of universal admiration, and consequently of envy. Her navy was invincible, her commerce extensive; Europe and Asia supplied her with wealth; of her citizens, all were intrepid, many virtuous; but some too much infected with principles unfavorable to freedom. Hence an oligarchy was, in great measure, established; crooked counsels were thought supreme wisdom; and the Athenians, having lost their true rehsh for their own freedom, began to attack that of their colonies, and of the States which they had before protected. Their arrogant claims of unlimited dominion had compelled the Chians, Coans, Rhodians, Lesbians, to join with nine other small communities in the social war, which they began with inconceivable ardor, and continued with industry surpassing all example, and almost surpassing belief. They were openly assisted by Mausolus, king of Caria, to whose metropolis the united Islands had sent a philosopher, named Eleutherion, eminent for the deepest knowledge of nature, the most solid judgment, most approved virtue, and most ardent zeal for the cause of general liberty. The war had been supported for three years with infinite exertions of valor on both sides, with deliberate firmness on the part of the allies, and with unabated vio • It will be immediately perceived, on the perusal of this pretended Fragment that it was an ir gera uas device on the part of Mr. Jones to bring to Dr. Franklin a notice such terms of ever," at ́n as n -lt pr duly at the trum have been obtained from the British ♬ verntuent The idea of a direct se knowledgment of independence is carefully excluded – By substituting France for Caria, England for „Athens, the United States for the Imands, Dr. Frank. lin for 'autherton, and Mr. Jones fut an „likemian, the interpretali in wiải bọ lence on the part of the Athenians; who had, nevertheless, despatched commissioners to Rhodes, with intent to propose terms of accommodation; but the States (perhaps too pertinaciously) refused to hear any proposal whatever, without a previous recognition of their total independence by the magistrates and the people of Athens. It was not long after this, that an Athenian, who had been a pupil of Isæus together with Demosthenes, and begun to be known in his country as a pleader of causes, was led by some affairs of his clients to the capital of Caria. He was a man unauthorized, unemployed, unconnected; independent in his circumstances, as much as in his principles; admitting no governor, under Providence, but the laws; and no laws but those, which justice and virtue had dictated, which wisdom approved, which his country had freely enacted. He had been known at Athens to the sage Eleutherion; and, their acquaintance being renewed, he sometimes took occasion in their conversations to lament the increasing calamities of war, and to express his eager desire of making a general peace on such terms as would produce the greatest good from the greatest evil; for "this," said he, "would be a work not unworthy of the divine attributes; and, if mortals could effect it, they would act like those beneficent beings, whom Socrates believed to be the constant friends and attendants of our species." He added, "As to the united nations, I applaud, admire, and almost envy them; I am even tempted to wish that I had been born a Chian or a Rhodian; but let them be satisfied with the prize of virtue, which they have already obtained. I will yield to none of your countrymen, my friend, in my love of liberty; but she seems more lovely to my eyes, when she comes hand-in-hand with peace. From that union we can expect nothing but the highest happiness of which our nature is capable; and it is a union, which nothing now obstructs but a mere word. Let the confederates be contented with the substance of that independence, which they have asserted, and the word will necessarily follow. Let them not hurt the natural, and, perhaps, not reprehensible, pride of Athens, nor demand any concession that may sink in the eyes of Greece a nation, to whom they are and must be united in language, in blood, in manners, in interest, in principles. Glory is to a nation what reputation is to an individual; it is not an empty sound, but important and essential. It will be glorious in Athens to acknowledge her error in attempting to reduce the Islands; but an ac |