that my disease is not very grievous, since I am more afraid of the medicines than of the malady.

It gives me pleasure to learn from you that my friends still retain their regard for me. I long to see them again, but I doubt I shall hardly accomplish it. If our commission for the treaty of commerce were arrived, and we were at liberty to treat in England, I might then come 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 ene mies 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, or may have, your enemies; but let not that render you unhappy. If you 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 our guard, and help us to live more correctly.

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

TO MRS. BACHE.

On the proposed order of the Cincinnati, hereditary nobility, and descending honors.

MY DEAR CHILD,

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

very agreeable to me. I received by Captain Barney 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 the articles of confederation, manifested their dislike of establishing ranks of nobility, by authority either of the congress or of any particular state, a number of private persons should think proper to distinguish themselves and their posterity from their fellow-citizens, and form an order of hereditary knights, in direct opposition to the solemuly-declared sense of their country! I imagine it must be likewise contrary to the good sense of most of those drawn into it, by 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 observances of respect; that "if people can be pleased with small matters, it is a pity but they should have them." In 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 example 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 a man from his learning, his wisdom, or his valor, is promoted by the emperor to the rank of mandarin, his parents are immediately entitled to all the same ceremonies of 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

by his parents, that he was rendered capable of serving the, public. This ascending honor is therefore useful to the state, as it encouragés parents to give their children a good and virtuous education. But the descending honor, to a pos terity who could have no share in obtaining it, is not only, groundless and absurd, but often 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 with much of what is called the noblesse in Europe. Or if, to keep up the dignity of the family, estates are entailed entire on the eldest male heir, another pest 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

.

The celebrated civilian, Francis Hotoman, who was one of the most learned men of his age, gives us the cause of making hereditary the order of nobility in France. In his work, intitled Franco-Gallia, written in the year 1574, he says:

"We must not omit making mention of the cunning device made use of by Hugh Capet, for establishing himself in his new dominion [of king of France anno 987.] For whereas all the magistrates and honors of the kingdom, such as dukedoms, earldoms, &c. had been hitherto from ancient times, conferred upon select and deserving persons in the general conventions of the people, and were held only during good behavior; whereof (as the lawyers express it) they were but beneficiaries: Hugh Capet, in order to secure to himself the affections of the great men, was the first that made those honors perpetual; which were formerly but temporary: and ordained that such as obtained them should have an hereditary right in them, and might leave them to their children. Of this see Franciscus Cononanus the civilian's Comment 11, chap. ix."

It is singular that this fact has escaped the notice of most of the French historians,

and decultivated Spain; occasioning 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 nowhere 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 their instruction and example we ascribe the merit of those actions.

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 twelfth : ́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 wives 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 it, the disagreeable consequences of the jealousy, envy, and ill-will of his countrymen.

Let us go back with our calculation from this young noble, the 512th part of the present knight, through his 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 eight, the next sixteen, the next thirty-two, the next sixty-four, the next one hundred and twenty-eight, the next two hundred and fifty-six, and the ninth in this retrocession five hundred and twelve, who must be now esisting, and all contribute their proportion of this future Chevalier de Cincinnatus. These, with the rest, make together as follows:

One thousand and twenty-two men and women, contributors to the formation of one knight. And if we are to have a thousand of these future knights, there must be now and hereafter existing one million and twenty-two thousand fathers and mothers, who are to contribute to their produc