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usti; I saw him often, and had much satisfaction and pleasure in his conversation.

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The Congress have done me the honor to refuse accepting my resignation, and insist on my continuing in their service till the peace. I must therefore buckle again to business, and thank God that my health and spirits are of late improved. I fancy it may have been à double mortification to those enemies you have mentioned to me, that I should ask as a favor what they hoped to vex me by taking from me; and that I should nevertheless be continued. But these sort of considerations should never influence our conduct. We ought always to do what appears best to be done, without much regarding what others may think of it. I call this continuance an honor, and I really esteem it to be a greater than my first appointment, when I consider that all the interest of my enemies, united with my own request, were not sufficient to prevent it.

I have not yet received the works of your Economical Society, or those of its founder. I suppose you have not met with an opportunity of sending them. The letter you propose sending to our Philosophical Society will be very acceptable to them. I shall be glad to peruse the copy you propose passing through my hands.

Yours, B. FRANKLIN.

TO THE REV. MR. WM. NIXON, AN ENGLISH PRISONER ON PAROLE AT VALOGNE.

Means of doing much Good with little Money,

REV. SIR,

·Passy, Sept. 5, 1781. .' I duly received the letter you did me the honor of writing to me the 25th past, together with the valuable little book, of which you are the author. There

can be no doubt but that a gentleman of your learning and abilities might make a very useful member of society in our new country, and meet with encouragement there, either as an instructor in one of our Universities, or as a Clergyman of the Church of Ireland. But I am not impowered to engage any person to go over thither, and my abilities to assist the distressed are very limited. I suppose you will soon be set at liberty in England by the Cartel for the Exchange of Prisoners; in the mean time if five Louis d'ors may be of present service to you, please to draw on me for that sum, and your bill shall be paid on sight. Some time or other you may have an opportunity of assisting with an equal sum a stranger who has equal need of it. Do so. By that means you will discharge may suppose yourself under to me. Enjoin him to do the same on occasion. By pursuing such a practice, much good may be done with little money. Let kind offices go round. Mankind are all of a family. I have the honor to be, Rev. Sir, &c.

any obligation you

B. FRANKLIN.

TO THE HON. DANIEL OF ST. THOMAS JENIFER, Esq. MEMBER OF CONGRESS.

SIR,

Passy, Sept. 13, 1781. I received the very obliging letter you did me the honor of writing to me the 20th of June last. It gave me great satisfaction to find, by the unanimous choice you mention, that my services had not been unacceptable to Congress; and to hear also that they were favorably disposed towards my grandson, Temple Franklin. It was my desire to quit public business, fearing it might suffer in my hands through the infirmities incident to my time

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of life. But as they are pleased to think I may still be useful, I submit to their judgment, and shall do my best.

I immediately forwarded the letter you inclosed for Mr. Lowndes; and if in any thing else I can do you ser vice or pleasure here, please to command me freely. I have the honor to be, with great regard, Sir, &c.

B. FRANKLIN.

TO RICHARD BACHE, ESQ. PHILADELPHIA,

Mr.Wharton's Pamphlet on the Indiana Claims-Dr. Frunklin's papers lost.

DEAR SON,

Passy, Sept. 13, 1781. I received yours of June 20th. It gave me great pleasure, as it informed me of the welfare of yourself and the dear family.

I have read Mr. Wharton's Pamphlet. The facts, as far as I know them, are as he states them. Justice is, I think, on the side of those who contracted for the lands." But moral and political right sometimes differ, and sometimes are both subdued by might.

I received and thank you for several copies of the Indian Spelling-Book. I received also the German and English Newspapers.

Among my papers in the trunk, which I unhappily left in the care of Mr. Galloway, were eight or ten quire or two quire books, of rough drafts of my letters, containing all my correspondence, when in England, for near twenty years. I shall be very sorry if they too are lost. Don't think it possible, by going up into that country, and

you

'The Indiana Grant.

enquiring a little among the neighbours, you might possibly hear of, and recover some of them. I should not have left them in his hands, if he had not deceived me, by saying that though he was before otherwise inclined, yet that since the king had declared us out of his protection, and the Parliament by an Act had made our properties plunder, he would go as far in defence of his country as any man; and accordingly he had lately with pleasure given colours to a regiment of militia, and an entertainment to 400 of them before his house, I thought he was become a stanch friend to the glorious cause. I was mistaken. As he was a friend of my son's, to whom in my will I had left all my books and papers, I made him one of my executors, and put the trunk of papers into his hands, imagining them safer in his house (which was out of the way of any probable march of enemies' troops) than in my own. It was very unlucky.

My love to Sally and the children. I shall soon write to all my friends. At present I am pinched in time, and can only add that I am ever

Your affectionate father,

B. FRANKLIN.

To FS. HOPKINSON, ESQ. PHILADELPHIA.
Dr. Franklin's Friends and Enemies, &c.

DEAR SIR,

Passy, Sept. 13, 1781.

I have received your kind letter of July 17, with its duplicate, enclosing those for Messrs. Brandlight and Sons, which I have forwarded. I am sorry for the loss of the squibs. Every thing of yours gives me plea

sure.

'Governor Franklin.

As to the friends and enemies you just mention, I have hitherto, thanks to God, had plenty of the former kind; they have been my treasure; and it has perhaps been of no disadvantage to me that I have had a few of the latter. They serve to put us upon correcting the faults we have, and avoiding those we are in danger of having. They counteract the mischief flattery might do us, and their malicious attacks make our friends more zealous in serving us and promoting our interest. At present I do not know of more than two such enemies" that I enjoy, viz. *** and ***. I deserved the enmity of the latter, because I might have avoided it by paying him a compliment, which I neglected. That of the former I owe to the people of France, who happened to respect me too much and him too little; which I could bear and he could not. They are unhappy that they cannot make every body hate me as much as they do; and I should be so if my friends did not love me much more than those gentlemen can possibly love one another.

Enough of this subject. Let me know if you are in possession of my gimcrack instruments and if you have made any new experiments. I lent many years ago a large glass globe, mounted, to Mr. Coombe, and an electric battery of bottles, which I remember; perhaps there were some other things. He may have had them so long as to think them his own. Pray ask him for them, and keep them for me together with the rest.

You have a new crop of prose writers. I see in your papers many of their fictitious names, but nobody tells me the real. You will oblige me by a little of your literary history. Adieu, my dear friend, and believe me ever Yours affectionately, B. FRANKLIN.

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