261 b.1901 1 2919019 9.1°0

To His EXCELLENCY JOHN JAY, Esq.

15:00 £ 28 2919 4 916 03/qbul 1917, 11 990.

3. DEAR SIR,Ow sicuw en Pašsý, January 6, 1784. athi gross received your kind letter of the 26th past, and immediately sent that inclosed to Mrs. Jay, whom I saw a days since with the children, all perfectly well. It is a happy thing that the little ones are so fmely past the small pox, and I congratulate you upon it most cordially.

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It is true, as you have heard, that I have the stone, but not that I have had thoughts of being cut for it. It is as yet very tolerable. Sin It gives me no pain but when in a carriage on the pavement, or or when I make some sudden

quick movement. If I can prevent its growing larger, movement.f which I hope to do by abstenious living and gentle exer

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cise, I can go on pretty comfortably with it to the end of my journey, which can now be at no great distance. I am cheerful, enjoy the company of my friends, sleep well, have sufficient appetite, and my stomach performs well its functions. The latter is very material to the preservation of health. I therefore take no drugs lest I should disorder it. You may judge that my disease is not very grievous, since I am

it.re afraid of the medicines than of the ma

81298401 901 en gulb 192, HI 9T8Q TRO I lady.

my friends

It gives me pleasure to learn from you that my

still retain their regard for me. I long to see them again, but I doubt I shall hardly accomplish it. If our comhard

eat. a bed T TWO to mode, W

mission for the treaty of commerce were

arrived, and we

were at liberty to treat in England, I might then come

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over to you, supposing the English ministry disposed to

enter into such a treaty.

I have, as you observe, some enemies in England, but they are my enemies as an American, I have also two or three in America, who are my enemies as a minister; but I thank God there are not in the whole world any who are my enemies as a man; for by his grace, through a long life I have been enabled so to conduct myself, that there does not exist a human being who can justly say, Ben. Franklin has wronged me. This, my friend, is in old age a comfortable reflection. You too have, ou too have, or may have, your enemies; but let not that render you unhappy. If

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make a right use of them, they will do you more good than harm. They point out to us our faults; they put us upon ན དུ our guard, and help us to live more correctly....

My grandsons are sensible of the honor of your remembrance, and join their respectful compliments and best wishes, with those of, dear sir, your affectionate humble servant, B. FRANKLIN.

smet p fearg om te ad wom man doidu མ་ག་ Mar^rgala abran T♂ MRS. BACHEVOSA Jome cle

awn verrateng dasmoda yor bez stidagde the other eyed On the proposed Order of the Cincinnati, Hereditary Nobility, and descending Honors. led to

czarn gray for ei sergeih ve tedt gahar

MY DEAR CHILD,

Passy, Jan. 26, 1784. Your care in sending me the newspapers

is very agreeable to me. I received by Captain Barney my 291 those relating to the Cincinnati. My opinion of the institution cannot be of much importance: I only wonder that, when the united wisdom of our nation had, in th articles of confederation, manifested their dislike of establishing ranks of nobility, by authority either of the con

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gress or of any particular state, a number of private persons should think proper to distinguish themselves and their posterity, from their fellow-citizens, and forme an order of hereditary knights, in direct opposition to the solemnly-declared sense of their country! I imagine it must be likewise contrary to the good sense of most of those drawn into it, oby: the persuasion of its projectors, who have been too much struck with the ribbands and crosses they have seen hanging to the button-holes of foreign officers. And I suppose those who disapprove of it have not hitherto given it much opposition, from a principle somewhat like that of your good mother, relating to punctilious persons, who are always exacting little ob servances of respect that "if people can be pleased with small matters, it is a pity but they should have them.” Ins this view, perhaps, I should not myself, if my advice had been asked, have objected to their wearing their ribband and badge themselves according to their fancy, though I certainly should to the entailing it as an honor on their posterity. For honor, worthily obtained, (as that for ex ample of our officers) is in its nature a personal thing, and incommunicable to any but those who had some share in obtaining it. Thus among the Chinese, the most ancient, and from long experience the wisest of nations, honor does not descend, but ascends. If acman from his learning, his wisdom, orchis valbur, is promoted by the Emperor to the rank of Mandaring his parents are immediately entitled to all the same dceremonies sof respect from the people that are established as due to the Mandarin himself; on the supposition that it must have been owing to the education, instruction, and good example afforded him

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by his parents, that he was rendered capable of serving the publican This ascending honor is therefore useful to the state, as it encourages parents to give their children a good and virtuous education. But the descending hovory to a posterity who could have no share in obtaining it, iss not only groundless and absurd, but oftens hurtful to that posterity, since it is apt to make them proud, disdaining to be employed in useful arts, and thence falling into poverty, and all the meannesses, servility, and wretchedness attending it; which is the present case Avith much of what is called the noblesse in Europe Oroif, to keep up the dignity of the family, estates are entailed entire on the eldest male heir, another pests to industry and improvement of the country is introduced, which will be followed by all the odious mixture of pride and beggary,, and idleness: that have half depopulated and decultivated Spain soccas sioning continual extinction of families by the discouragements of marriage, and neglect in the improvement of estates. I wish therefore that the Cincinnati, if they must go on with their project, would direct the badges of their order to be worn by their fathers and mothers, instead of handing them down to their children. It would be a good precedent, and might have good effects. It would also be a kind of obedience to the fourth commandment, in which God enjoins us to honor our father and mother, but has no where directed us to honor our children. And certainly no mode of honoring those immediate authors of our being can be more effectual, than that of doing praiseworthy actions, which reflect honor on those who gave us our education; or more becoming, than that of manifesting, by some public expression or token, that it is to

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their instruction and sexample we ascribes the merits of those actions. 9min! ah » 10 mostoɖoną iron?

But the absurdity of descending honors is not a mere matter of philosophical opinion, it is capable of mathematical demonstration. A man's son, for instance, is but half of his family, the other half belonging to the family of his wife. His son too, marrying into another family, his share in the grandson is but a fourth; in the great grandson, by the same process, it is but an eighth. In the next generation a sixteenth; the next a thirty second; the next a sixty fourth; the next an hundred and twenty eighth; the next a two hundred and fifty sixth; and the next a five hundred and twelfthe thus in nine generations, which will not require more than 300 years, (no very great antiquity for a family) our present Chevalier of the Order of Cincinnatus's share in the then existing knight, will be but a 512th part which, allowing the present certain fidelity of American wiges to be insured down through all those nine generations, is so small a consideration, that methinks no reasonable man would hazard for the sake of rit,thes disagreeable consequences of the jealousy, envy, and ill-will of his countrymen.0 by a 2.97 20092914 on Let us go back with our calculation from this young onoble, the 512tbbpart of the present Knight, through his 3 nine generations, till we return to, the year of the institution. He must have had a father and mother, they are two each of them had a father and mother, they are four. Those of the next preceding generation will be seight, the next sixteen, the next thirty-two, the next sixtyfour, the next one hundred and twenty-eight, the next two hundred and fifty-six, and the ninth in this retrocession

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