1Plain Truth, 17 November 1747 (Franklin Papers)
Plain Truth: or, Serious Considerations On the Present State of the City of Philadelphia, and Province of Pennsylvania....spring and early summer of 1747 the activity of French and Spanish privateers had been increasing off the Delaware capes, and each week’s newspapers reported some new action. To prevent their learning too much about the river and the defenseless condition of Philadelphia...
2Record of Service in the Assembly, 1751–64 (Franklin Papers)
Put on a Committee to prepare a Bill, same Day.On a Committee to prepare an Answer to Governors Messages.
3Deed of Settlement of the Philadelphia Contributionship, 25 March 1752 (Franklin Papers)
...fund “to make up the Damage that may Arise by Fire among this Company.” Articles were drafted and discussed; Franklin had them engrossed; and in November they were submitted to the Company and signed. The scheme rested on too narrow a basis, however; ...include the other fire companies. On July 26, 1751, Franklin submitted a proposal to the Union Company “relating to the consideration of the...
4The Albany Plan of Union, 1754 (Franklin Papers)
Copy: Public Record Office, London; also copies: Rhode Island Archives, John Carter Brown Library, New York State Library, Maryland Hall of Records, Library of Congress, New-York Historical Society, Boston University Library, American Philosophical Society (fragment)...the Committee on a Plan of Union had presented its “Short Hints” to the Albany Congress, June 28, that body discussed the...
5Some Account of the Pennsylvania Hospital, [28 May 1754] (Franklin Papers)
To report on their stewardship and demonstrate reasons for continued support by the Assembly and the public, the Managers in the spring of 1754 decided to print an account of the institution’s history. Franklin prepared it, presenting his manuscript on May 28. It was a record of one of his and Philadelphia’s noblest civic achievements; and from its magnificent opening paragraph to its final...
6Poor Richard Improved, 1758 (Franklin Papers)
...of all Franklin’s writings, even including the autobiography. Richard Saunders’ prefatory address to the “Courteous Reader,” which in previous almanacs usually occupies about one page, is in this year expanded to fill not only the usual second page of the pamphlet but also all the available space on the right-hand pages devoted to the twelve months and all but two lines of an additional page...
Public Record Office, London...291 n), the chancellor of the Exchequer laid before the House of Commons, April 26, 1759, a message from the King recommending appropriate reimbursements. This message was referred to the committee of the whole house, which resolved on April 30 that a sum not exceeding £200,000 be granted to the several colonies. On the same day the resolution was read a second...
8From Benjamin Franklin to David Hall, 8 April 1759 (Franklin Papers)
...that the new Fount of Bourgeois was not got to hand, as I found by my Accounts that I had got it ready and order’d it to be shipt in September when I paid Caslon for it; but on Enquiry I find it was not shipt till November, and then on board the Rebeccah and Susannah, Capt. Nicholson; it was in two Boxes mark’d BF. No. 1, 2.I congratulate you on the Success of our Forces and Treaty in ...on...
9The Interest of Great Britain Considered, [17 April 1760] (Franklin Papers)
...Active discussion, therefore, soon began in Great Britain about proper terms for a peace settlement. Sharp differences of opinion emerged as to which of the British conquests the ministry should insist on keeping, both to secure the safety of the nation’s existing overseas possessions and to enhance the trade and prosperity of the mother country and the empire as a whole. Very quickly...
10From Benjamin Franklin to Isaac Norris; Pennsylvania Assembly Committee of Accounts: Report, 9, 15, and 19 February 1763 (Franklin Papers)
On Feb. 9, 1763, Franklin drafted a letter to serve as preface to a statement of his expenses as agent of the Assembly in England (Document I). After considering the draft, however, he must have felt that... it gave the impression of extravagant living in London and was too personal in tone, so on February 15 he composed another letter incorporating only the first and part of the second... ...on...
11Explanatory Remarks on the Assembly’s Resolves, [29 March 1764] (Franklin Papers)
On March 30, 1764, the day after the printed the recent messages between the governor and the Assembly and the twenty-six Assembly “Resolves upon the Present Circumstances,” Joseph Galloway wrote to William Franklin enclosing “a Copy of your worthy Father’s Remarks on our Assembly Resolves. No answer has yet been attempted by the Proprietary Faction, who seem much depressed.” ...on the... ...on...
12Preface to Joseph Galloway’s Speech, [11 August 1764] (Franklin Papers)
...The Speech of Joseph Galloway, Esq; One of the Members for Philadelphia County; In Answer To the Speech of John Dickinson, Esq; Delivered in the House of Assembly, of the Province of Pennsylvania, May 24, 1764. On Occasion of a Petition drawn up by Order, and then under the Consideration of the House; praying his Majesty for a Royal, in lieu of a Proprietary Government...on the petition...
13From Benjamin Franklin to the Freemen of Pennsylvania, 28 September 1764 (Franklin Papers)
Governor Penn had asked the Assembly for a militia bill on Feb. 4, 1764, and the House sent him one on the 28th. After conferring with his Council the governor returned the bill on March 12 with a series of proposed amendments, but when the House considered the matter on the 17th it took no formal action on his proposals. In the “Necklace of Resolves” adopted on March 24, four resolutions (nos....
14Poor Richard Improved, 1765 (Franklin Papers)
When he returned to Philadelphia, Nov. 1, 1762, the issue for 1763 had already been on sale for a little over five weeks, announced on Sept. 27, 1764, was the first in seven years to which he may have made any contribution as author, compiler, or editor....and such lesser details as the selection of verses and aphorisms to be inserted on the pages for each month. Yet the preparation of the...
15Scheme for Supplying the Colonies with a Paper Currency, [11–12 February? 1765] (Franklin Papers)
When Franklin first heard that Grenville had proposed an act of parliament levying stamp duties on the colonies, he wrote Richard Jackson, June 25, 1764, that he thought he “could propose a better Mode by far, both for us and for you, if we were together to talk it over; but a... ...as that outlined in the document printed below. After reaching London on December 10, 1764, he probably......on...
16From Benjamin Franklin to the Georgia Assembly Committee of Correspondence, 10 August 1770 (Franklin Papers)
The first contained a Certificate for One Hundred Pounds, which will be paid, and carried to the Credit of your Province, Please to accept my Thanks for your Care in transmitting it. With the second I recieved, The two Ordinances appointing me your Agent till June 1771, The Act for ordering and governing Slaves, &c. A Copy of the Commons Address to the Governor of Nov. 16, 1769 relating [to]...on
17From Benjamin Franklin to Thomas Cushing, 2 December 1772 (Franklin Papers)
and incomplete copy: Public Record Office; letterbook draft: Library of Congressdescribed in the second part inflamed that crisis and deeply affected the remainder of his English mission. The importance of the letter is obvious, and so are the problems that it raises.
18From Benjamin Franklin to Thomas Cushing, 5 January 1773 (Franklin Papers)
and copy: Public Record Office; letterbook draft: Library of CongressI did myself the Honour of Writing to you on the 2d of December past inclosing some news papers to 30th november last ...before I was to wait on his Lordship, that he might have a little time to consider the Contents. When I next attended him, he return’d me the Letter with much Complacence in his Countenance, said he was glad...
19Preface to the Declaration of the Boston Town Meeting, February 1773 (Franklin Papers)
...similarly paid, and a month later the Bostonians began a series of town meetings to protest what they considered to be unconstitutional innovations. The protest quickly expanded into a broader indictment of British policy, and culminated in the adoption on November 20 of three resolutions, which constituted for Hutchinson a “declaration of independency.” ...and Council on the......on... ...on...
20From Benjamin Franklin to William Deane, 11 April 1773 (Franklin Papers)
Does he go on with his Printing Schemes, or has he got into some better Employment?The advent of the turnpike had created a traffic problem of increasing magnitude, and a demand for greater Parliamentary control. In 1772 a committee of the House of Commons issued its report on revising earlier legislation. The following year the report was implemented in two statutes (13 Geo. ...and the second...
21An Open Letter to Lord Buckinghamshire, [4 March 1774] (Franklin Papers)
The Public AdvertiserYou gave us Reason to expect some Weeks ago that you would move the House of Peers with a Subject of some Importance. The Public was amused, as the Custom is on such Occasions, ...is now said that you intended to bring on the Affairs of North America, but the Motion is deferred till some further Accounts are received from that unfortunate Country. As I have not the Honour...
22From Benjamin Franklin to William Franklin: Journal of Negotiations in London, 22 March 1775 (Franklin Papers)
...He had with him a mass of papers with which he documented his journal; the bulk of it is therefore reliable, but the rest is as he remembered it. He said himself that his recollection was fallible, and on some minor points it is contradicted by contemporary evidence....negotiations dragged on so long is in itself revealing. Whoever was privy to them in Whitehall knew that British military...
23Intended Vindication and Offer from Congress to Parliament, [before 21 July 1775] (Franklin Papers)
The Public AdvertiserPublic Advertiser
24The American Commissioners to the Committee of Secret Correspondence, 17[–22] January 1777 (Franklin Papers)
We joined each other at this place on the 22d. of December and on the 28th. had an Audience of his Excellency the Count De Vergennes, one of his most Christian Majesty’s principal Secretarys of State and Minister for Foreign Affairs. We laid before him our Commission with the Articles of... ...a Memoire on the present situation of our States, drawn up at the Ministers request, together with...
25Memoir and Supplemental Observations, [before 18 June and before 3 July 1777?] (Franklin Papers)
...the other; John Adams, writing years later, said that both were the work of Edward Bancroft. No one, as far as we know, even guessed at the purpose behind them or touched on the most surprising fact about them, that they were published under the auspices of the French government. The contradictions and gaps in the evidence preclude any conclusions, and we must content ourselves with......on...
26The American Commissioners’ Interview on January 8 with Gérard: Four Documents, 1778 (Franklin Papers)
..., in Deane’s quarters in Paris at six in the evening of January 8, was the commissioners’ reward for all the frustrations of the previous year. Vergennes had announced to them on December 12 that France was ready to negotiate, but three weeks of silence followed while the court attempted to secure Spanish participation. Then, when Madrid made clear that it had no intention of co-operating in...
27From Benjamin Franklin to the Committee for Foreign Affairs, 26 May 1779 (Franklin Papers)
I immediately acquainted the Minister for Foreign Affairs with my Appointment and communicated to him as usual a Copy of my Credential Letter, on which a Day was named for my Reception. A Fit of the Gout prevented my attendance at that time, and for some Weeks after, but as soon as I was able to go through the Ceremony, I went... ...has very little Effect; and when on some Occasions it has seem’...
28Political, Miscellaneous, and Philosophical Pieces, 1779 [7 December 1779] (Franklin Papers)
In December, 1776, his volume nearly finished, Vaughan learned that his author had landed on French soil and was setting out for Paris. Within days of Franklin’s arrival there, Vaughan appeared at his doorstep, informing him of the edition and asking him to review the finished sheets....to convince Johnson to discard what was already typeset and start afresh. On January 27, 1777, he announced...
29Jacques-Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont and Franklin: An Exchange About Accounts, [before 26 April 1782] (Franklin Papers)
Franklin received Robert Morris’ request for copies of the public accounts in September, 1781. On March 4, with Barclay still delayed, Franklin sent to Morris an unverified copy of at least some of the public accounts (probably his account with the French government, kept by Ferdinand Grand). ...to review the account that he had drawn up and signed on July 1, 1781, for transactions between...public
30From Benjamin Franklin to Ingenhousz, 2 October 1781[–21 June 1782] (Franklin Papers)
writing a good deal on various Subjects, which I could not find sufficient time to think of properly: Your Experiments on the Conducting of Heat was one Subject; the finishing my Remarks on the Stroke of lightning in Italy was another; then I was taken ill with a severe Fit of the Gout soon after you left us, which held me near three Months, and put my Business & Correspondence so......Credit...on