prove it. That there should be faults in our first sketches or plans of government is not surprising; rather, considering the times, and the circumstances under which they were formed, it is surprising that the faults are so few. Those in the general confederating articles, are now about to be considered in a convention called for that express purpose; these will indeed be the most difficult to rectify. Those of particular states will undoubtedly be rectified, as their inconveniences shall by experience be made manifest. And whatever difference of sentiment: there may be among us respecting particular regulations, the enthusiastic rejoicings with which the day of declared independence is annually celebrated, demonstrate the universal satisfaction of the people with the revolution and its grand principles. I enclose the vocabulary you sent me, with the words of the Shawanese and Delaware languages, which Colonel Harmar has procured for me. He is promised one more complete, which I shall send you as soon as it comes to my hands. My grandson, whom you so kindly inquire after, is at his estate in the Jersies, and amuses himself with cultivating his lands. I wish he would seriously make a business of it, and renounce all thoughts of public employment; for I think agriculture the most honorable because the most independent of all professions. But I believe he hankers a little after Paris, or some other of the polished cities of Europe, thinking the society there preferable to what he meets with in the woods of Ancocas; as it certainly is. If he was now here, he would undoubtedly join with me and the rest of my family (who are much flattered by your remembrance of them) in best wishes for your health and prosperity, and that of your whole amiable fireside. You will allow an old friend of fourscore to say he loves your wife, when he adds, and children, and prays God price of country produce high, from foreign demand, and it fetches ready money; rents are high in our towns, which increase fast by new buildings; laborers and artizans have high wages well paid, and vast tracts of new land are continually clearing and rendered fit for cultivation. I am, &c. B. FRANKLIN. TO MR. JORDAIN, LONDON. On receiving his present of a cask of porter-Herschel's DEAR SIR, discoveries, &c. Philadelphia, May 18, 1787, 1 received your very kind letter of February 27, together with the cask of porter you have been so good as to send me. We have here at present what the French call une assemblée des notables, a convention composed of some of the principal people from the several states of our confederation. They did me the honor of dining with me last Wednesday, when the cask was broached, and its contents met with the most cordial reception and universal approbation. In short the company agreed unanimously that it was the best porter they had ever tasted. Accept my thanks, a poor return, but all I can make at present. Your letter reminds me of many happy days we have pass ed together, and the dear friends with whom we passed them; some of whom, alas! have left us, and we must regret their loss, although our Hawkesworth' is become an adventurer in more happy regions; and our Stanley gone," where only I John Hawkesworth, LL. D. author of the Adventurer, and compiler of the account of the Discoveries made in the South Seas, by Captain Cook. 2 John Stanley, an eminent musician and composer, became blind at the age of two years. VOL. I. wish for, except repose; and that I may soon expect either by the cessation of my office, which cannot last more than three years, or by ceasing to live. I am of the same opinion with you respecting the freedom of commerce, especially in countries where direct taxes are practicable. This will be our case in time, when our wideextended country fills up with inhabitants. But at present they are so widely settled, often five or six miles distant from one another in the back country, that the collection of a direct tax is almost impossible, the trouble of the collectors' going from house to house amounting to more than the value of the tax. Nothing can be better expressed than your sentiments are on this point, where you prefer liberty of trading, cultivating, manufacturing, &c. even to civil liberty, this being affected but rarely, the other every hour. Our debt occasioned by the war being heavy, we are under the necessity of using im posts and every method we can think of to assist in raising a revenue to discharge it; but in sentiment we are well disposed to abolish duties on importation as soon as we possibly can afford to do so..! : Whatever may be reported by the English in Europe, you may be assured that our people are almost unanimous in being satisfied with the revolution. Their unbounded respect for all who were principally concerned in it, whether as warriors or statesmen, and the enthusiastic joy with which the day of the declaration of independence is everywhere an nually celebrated, are indubitable proof of this truth. › In one or two of the states there have been some discontents on partial and local subjects; these may have been fomented, as the accounts of them are exaggerated, by our ancient enemies; but they are now nearly suppressed, and the rest of the states enjoy peace and good order, and florish amaz ingly. The crops have been good for several years past, the price of country produce high, from foreign demand, and it fetches ready money; rents are high in our towns, which increase fast by new buildings; laborers and artizans have high wages well paid, and vast tracts of new land are continually clearing and rendered fit for cultivation. I am, &c. B. FRANKLIN. To MR. JORDAIN, LONDON. On receiving his present of a cask of porter-Herschel's DEAR SIR, discoveries, &c. Philadelphia, May 18, 1787, 1 received your very kind letter of February 27, together with the cask of porter you have been so good as to send me. We have here at present what the French call une assemblée des notables, a convention composed of some of the principal people from the several states of our confederation. They did me the honor of dining with me last Wednesday, when the cask was broached, and its contents met with the most cordial reception and universal approbation. In short the company agreed unanimously that it was the best porter they had ever tasted. Accept my thanks, a poor return, but all I can make at present. Your letter reminds me of many happy days we have passed together, and the dear friends with whom we passed them; some of whom, alas! have left us, and we must regret their loss, although our Hawkesworth' is become an adventurer in more happy regions; and our Stanley gone, "where only 2 John Hawkesworth, LL. D. author of the Adventurer, and compiler of the account of the Discoveries made in the South Seas, by Captain Cook. - 2 John Stanley, an eminent musician and composer, became blind at the age of two years. VOL. I. P ingham, Sir George Saville, and some others who honored me with a show of friendly regard when in England. I be lieve I have thanked you for it, but I thank you again. I believe with you, that if our plenipo is desirous of concluding a treaty of commerce, he may need patience. If I were in his place, and not otherwise instructed, I should be apt to say "take your own time, gentlemen." If the treaty cannot be made as much to your advantage as to ours, don't make it. I am sure the want of it is not more to our disadvantage than to yours. Let the merchants on both sides treat with one another. Laissez les faire. I have never considered attentively the congress's scheme for coining, and I have it not now at hand, so that at present I can say nothing to it. The chief uses of coining seem to be the ascertaining the fineness of the metals, and saving the time that would otherwise be spent in weighing to ascertain the quantity. But the convenience of fixed values to pieces is so great as to force the currency of some whose stamp is worn off that should have assured their fineness, and which are evidently not of half their due weight; the case at present with the sixpences in England; which one with another do not weigh three-pence. You are now 78, and I am 82: you tread fast upon my heels; but though you have more strength and spirit, you cannot come up with me till I stop, which must now be soon; for I am grown so old as to have buried most of the friends of my youth, and I now often hear persons whom I knew when children, called old Mr. such-a-one, to distinguish them from their sons now men grown and in business; so that by living twelve years beyond David's period, I seem to have intruded myself into the company of posterity, when I ought to have been a-bed and asleep. Yet had I gone at seventy it would have cut off twelve of the most active years |