stranger of 100,000 livres, and that somebody was imprisoned for only speaking of it, and the like very improbable stories; they are all fictions or misrepresentations. If they were truths, all strangers would avoid such a country, and foreign merchants would as soon carry their goods to sell in Newgate as America. Think a little on the sums England has spent to preserve a monopoly of the trade of that people, with whom they had long been acquainted, and of the desire all Europe is now manifesting to obtain a share of that trade. Our ports are full of their ships, their merchants buying and selling in our streets continually, and returning with our products. Would this happen? Could such commerce be continued with us, if we were such a collection of scoundrels and villains as we have been represented to you? And insurrections against our rulers are not only unlikely, as the rulers are the choice of the people, but unnecessary; as, if not liked, they may be changed annually by the new elections. I own you have cause, great cause, to complain of *****; but you are wrong to condemn a whole country by a single sample. I have seen many countries, and I do not know a country in the world in which justice is so well administered, where protection and favor have so little power to impede its operations, and where debts are recovered with so much facility. If I thought it such a country as it has been painted to you, I should certainly never return to it. The truth, I believe, is, that more goods have been carried thither from all parts of Europe, than the consumption of the country requires, and it is natural that some of the adventurers are willing to discourage others from following them, lest the prices should still be kept down by the arrival of fresh cargoes; and it is not unlikely that some negligent or unfaithful factors sent thither, may have given such accounts to excuse their not making remittances. And the

English magnify all this, and spread it abroad in their papers, to dissuade foreigners from attempting to interfere with them. in their commerce with us.

Your account of the emperor's condescending conversation with you concerning me, is pleasing. I respect very much the character of that monarch, and think, that if I were one of his subjects, he would find me a good one. I am glad that his difference with your country is likely to be accommodated without bloodshed. The Courier de l'Europe, and some other papers, printed a letter on that difference, which they ascribed to me. Be assured, my friend, that I never wrote it, nor was ever presumptuous enough to meddle with an affair so much out of my way. Yours, &c.

B. FRANKLIN.

To GEORGE WHEATLEY, Esq.;

On sending him his medallion.

DEAR OLD FRIEND,

Passy, May 19, 1785.

I received the very good letter you sent me by my grandson, together with your resemblance, which is placed in my chamber, and gives me great pleasure. There is no trade, they say, without returns, and therefore I am punctual in making those you have ordered.

I intended this should have been a long epistle, but I am interrupted, and can only add, that I am ever yours most affectionately, B. FRANKLIN.

TO JONATHAN WILLIAMS, Esq.

(EXTRACT.)

Passy, May 19, 1785. "The conversations you mention respecting America are suitable. Those people speak what they wish; but she was certainly never in a more happy situation. They are angry with us, and speak all manner of evil of us;

sand times when I was young, and now find at four-score that the three contraries have befallen me, being subject to the gout and the stone, and not being yet master of all my passions. Like the proud girl in my country, who wished and resolved not to marry a parson, nor a Presbyterian, nor an Irishman; and at length found herself married to an Irish Presbyterian parson. You see I have some reason to wish, that in a future state, I may not only be as well as I was, but a little better. And I hope it: for I too, with your poet, trust in God. And when I observe that there is great frugality, as well as wisdom, in his works, since he has been evidently sparing both of labor and materials; for, by the various wonderful inventions of propagation, he has provided for the continual peopling his world with plants and animals, without being at the trouble of repeated new creations; and by the natural reduction of compound substances to their original elements, capable of being employed in new compositions, he has prevented the necessity of creating new matter; so that the earth, water, air, and perhaps fire, which being compounded from wood, do, when the wood is dissolved, return, and again become air, earth, fire, and water; I say, that when I see nothing annibilated, and not even a drop of water wasted, I cannot suspect the annihilation of souls, or believe that he will suffer the daily waste of millions of minds ready made that now exist, and put himself to the continual trouble of making new ones. Thus finding myself to exist in the world, I believe I shall, in some shape or other, always exist; and, with all the inconveniences human life is liable to, I shall not object to a new edition of mine; hoping, however, that the errata of the last may be cor

rected.

I return your note of children received in the Foundling Hospital at Paris, from 1741 to 1755 inclusive; and I have

added the years succeeding down to 1770. Those since that period I have not been able to obtain. I have noted in the margin the gradual increase, viz. from every tenth child so thrown upon the public, until it comes to every third. Fifteen years have passed since the last account, and probably it may now amount to one-half. Is it right to encourage this monstrous deficiency of natural affection? A surgeon I met with here, excused the women of Paris, by saying seriously, that they could not give suck; "Car," said he, "elles n'ont point de tetons." He assured me it was a fact, and bade me look at them, and observe how flat they were on the breast; "they have nothing more there," said he, "than I have upon the back of my hand." I have since thought that there might be some truth in his observation, and that possibly nature, finding they made no use of bubbies, has left off giving them any. Yet, since Rousseau pleaded with admirable eloquence for the rights of children to their mothers' milk, the mode has changed a little; and some ladies of quality now suckle their infants and find milk enough. May the mode descend to the lower ranks, till it becomes no longer the custom to pack their infants away as soon as born, to the enfans trouvés, with the careless observation, that the king is better able to maintain them. I am credibly informed that nine-tenths of them die there pretty soon, which is said to be a great relief to the institution, whose funds would not otherwise be sufficient to bring up the remainder. Except the few persons of quality abovementioned, and the multitude who send to the hospital, the practice is to hire nurses in the country to carry out the children, and take care of them there. Here is an office for examining the health of nurses, and giving them licences. They come to town on certain days of the week in companies, to receive the children, and we often meet trains of

sand times when I was young, and now find at four-score that the three contraries have befallen me, being subject to the gout and the stone, and not being yet master of all my passions. Like the proud girl in my country, who wished and resolved not to marry a parson, nor a Presbyterian, nor an Irishman; and at length found herself married to an Irish Presbyterian parson. You see I have some reason to wish, that in a future state, I may not only be as well as I was, but a little better. And I hope it: for I too, with your poet, trust in God. And when I observe that there is great frugality, as well as wisdom, in his works, since he has been evidently sparing both of labor and materials; for, by the various wonderful inventions of propagation, he has provided for the continual peopling his world with plants and animals, without being at the trouble of repeated new creations; and by the natural reduction of compound substances to their original elements, capable of being employed in new compositions, he has prevented the necessity of creating new matter; so that the earth, water, air, and perhaps fire, which being compounded from wood, do, when the wood is dissolved, return, and again become air, earth, fire, and water; I say, that when I see nothing annihilated, and not even a drop of water wasted, I cannot suspect the annihilation of souls, or believe that he will suffer the daily waste of millions of minds ready made that now exist, and put himself to the continual trouble of making new ones. Thus finding myself to exist in the world, I believe I shall, in some shape or other, always exist; and, with all the inconveniences human life is liable to, I shall not object to a new edition of mine; hoping, however, that the errata of the last may be corrected.

I return your note of children received in the Foundling Hospital at Paris, from 1741 to 1755 inclusive; and I have