From Benjamin Franklin to Cadwallader Colden, 13 August 1747
To Cadwallader Colden
ALS: New-York Historical Society
Philada. Augt. 13. 1747
Sir
I am glad the electrical Observations please you.1 I leave them in your hands another Week. Our Workmen have undertaken the Electrical Apparatus, and I believe will do it extreamly well: It being a new Job they cannot say exactly what their Work will come to, but they will charge reasonably when done, and they find what Time it has taken. I suppose the whole will not exceed ten or twelve Pounds.
I send you enclos’d the Advertisement of the History of the 5 Nations.2
We are told here, that Gov. Belcher has brought Orders to disband the Forces raised for the Expedition against Canada;3 you know before this Time whether this is true, and whether the Expedition is postpon’d only, or the Thoughts of it entirely laid aside.
I am, Sir, with great Respect, Your most humble Servant
B Franklin
Addressed: To The honble. Cadr Colden Esqr New York Free B Franklin
1. See above, p. 169. This letter is apparently in reply to one of about Aug. 9 or 10, now lost.
2. Possibly a handbill or an advertisement from a London paper; it does not appear in Pa. Gaz. Colden’s History of the Five Nations, first published in 1727, was republished in the summer of 1747 by Thomas Osborne, London printer, with revisions and extensive additions. Collinson had urged Colden to prepare a new edition; Dr. John Mitchell helped to draw up the title page. Collinson also suggested that Osborne send 50 copies to James Read to sell in Philadelphia. Colden Paps., II, 207, 245–6; III, 369, 402–3; IX, 18–19.
3. These orders were issued. Charles H. Lincoln, ed., Correspondence of William Shirley (N.Y., 1912), I, 386–8.