1From Benjamin Franklin to ———, 10 February 1775 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : Henry E. Huntington Library In Compliance with your Request I this Morning applied to a Virginia Merchant for Information, Whether the Courts of Virginia are now shut? and if so, from what Causes? particularly whether from any Resolutions of the People there to avoid Payment of their English Debts, as you told me had been insinuated by a Person in Administration. Inclos’d I send you the...
2[Benjamin Franklin?] to ——, 8 January 1756 (Franklin Papers)
Extract printed in The Pennsylvania Gazette , January 15, 1756. I arrived here last Night. We met a Number of Waggons on the Road, moving off with the Effects of the People of Lehi Township. All the Women and Children are sent off out of that Township; and many of them have taken Refuge here; all in great Confusion. The Substance of the Action at Gnadenhutten, as we have received it from...
3From Benjamin Franklin to ——, [1760?] (Franklin Papers)
Draft (fragment): Library of Congress This fragment in Franklin’s hand is written on what appears to be the top segment of a page of letter paper; a caret in the margin of the first line seems to indicate that it was intended, according to his usual method, as an insertion in the body of what he had drafted on the opposite page. Neither the addressee nor the date is known. The wording suggests...
4From Benjamin Franklin to ———, [13 December 1757] (Franklin Papers)
Draft: Library of Congress; also copy: Yale University Library; and French translation: The Rosenbach Foundation Both the date and the addressee of this letter have been subjects of much difference of opinion. Each of the three surviving manuscript versions bears a different date line. That on the draft, in Franklin’s hand, has been heavily scratched out, probably long after the letter was...
5From Benjamin Franklin to ——, 25 January 1756 (Franklin Papers)
Copy: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission We got to Hays’s the same Evening we left you and reviewed Craig’s Company by the Way. Much of the next morning was spent in exchanging the bad Arms for good, Wayne’s Company having joined us. We reachd however that night to Uplinger’s, where we got into good Quarters. Saturday morning we began to march towards Gnadenhutten and proceeded near...
6[Benjamin Franklin?] to ———, 26 January 1756 (Franklin Papers)
Extract printed in The Pennsylvania Gazette , January 29, 1756. Wednesday we were hinder’d almost all Day by Rain. Thursday most of the Stockades were set up. Friday all inclosed to the Gate, and Part of the Platform round the Inside made. Saturday the Platform was finished, and two Swivels mounted. Sunday had a Thanksgiving Sermon, hoisted the British Flag, fired three Vollies, and the...
7From Benjamin Franklin to ———, [February 1746?]. (Franklin Papers)
Draft (fragment): American Philosophical Society has been blown off that Coast. Our Governor thinks they contain the Commissions for the Officers, and Orders to draw for the Pay of the Troops &c. and therefore directs me to forward them per Express to N. York, that they may overtake the Post. In haste I am &c. [ On back ] { One Month at £45 per Ann. is 3. 15. 0 Hire of Horse 2 Trips at 25 s....
8From Benjamin Franklin to ——, 8 April 1760 (Franklin Papers)
Draft: American Philosophical Society I received your Favour of the 31st of last Month, the answering of which I delayed and [I] should be glad to accompany you from London, in your next Return to Derbyshire; but doubt it will not be in my Power. I am sorry I cannot be certain as to the time of my going into Derbyshire. For on the very day you purpose coming to Town, viz. the 18th of this...
9[Benjamin Franklin?] to ——, 25 December 1755 (Franklin Papers)
Extract printed in The Pennsylvania Gazette , January 1, 1756. Governor Morris and the commissioners appointed in the £60,000 money act worked diligently to organize more effective measures against the continuing Indian attacks. By December 4 they had decided to rely chiefly upon a fort to be erected at Shamokin (at the forks of the Susquehanna; now Sunbury) from which ranging parties would be...
10[Benjamin Franklin?] to ——, 6 January 1756 (Franklin Papers)
Extract printed in The Pennsylvania Gazette , January 8, 1756. Jacob Levan, Esq; was sent by us to hear the Particulars of the Affair at Gnadenhutten, and fearing to go alone, sent Fifty-six Men over the Mountains on Saturday Evening, and on Sunday followed them with seventeen more. As soon as they got to the Top of the Hill, they saw all the white People running up, and the Indians running on...
11From Benjamin Franklin to ——, [11 April 1767] (Franklin Papers)
MS not found; reprinted from extract in The Pennsylvania Chronicle , June 1–8, 1767. We have been very busy about the Paper Money Affair. The Merchants are to wait on Lord Clare with their Opinion in Favour of it in a Day or two. After receiving Dr. F’s Remarks on the Report of the Board of Trade, they have drawn up a new Representation on the Subject, which they have signed, and Dr. F’s Paper...
12From Benjamin Franklin to ——, 3 April 1772 (Franklin Papers)
ALS (draft): American Philosophical Society Yesterday we tapp’d the Porter, and found it excellent. To prevent its being wasted, we have bottled it off, having a safer Place for Bottles, and imagining that in our slow Draught it might not keep so fresh. So we are enabled Herewith to return the Cask. How bountiful a Gratuity for half a Sheet of Paper! I can only say, that ’tis pity you are not...
13[Benjamin Franklin?] to ——, 20 January 1756 (Franklin Papers)
Extract printed in The Pennsylvania Gazette , January 29, 1756. We have been here since Sunday Afternoon: That Day we had only Time to get up some Shelter from the Weather and the Enemy. Yesterday all Day it rained, with so thick a Fog, that we could not see round us, so as either to chuse a Place for a Fort, or find Materials to build it. In the Night it cleared up, and this Morning we...
14From Benjamin Franklin to ———, 28 November 1768 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in part in The Gentleman’s Magazine , XLIX (supplement, 1779), pp. 647–8; printed in full in William Temple Franklin, ed., Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin, LL.D., F.R.S., &c. (quarto edition, 3 vols., London, 1817–18), II , 169–70. I received your obliging favour of the 12th instant. Your sentiments of the importance of the present dispute between Great-Britain...
15From Benjamin Franklin to the Académie Royale des Sciences, 16 November 1772 (Franklin Papers)
Photograph of ALS : Académie des sciences, Paris A Place among your foreign Members is justly esteemed, by all Europe, the greatest Honour a Man can arrive at in the Republick of Letters: It was therefore with equal Surprize and Satisfaction that I learnt you had condescended to confer that Honour upon me. Be pleased to accept my grateful Acknowledgements, and believe me with the greatest...
16From Benjamin Franklin to a French Friend, [June 1772]: extract (Franklin Papers)
Extract: printed in Pierre-Joseph-André Roubaud, Histoire générale de l’Asie, de l’Afrique et de l’Amérique … (5 vols., Paris, 1770–75), V , 90. Les Américains ne le cédent ni en force, ni en courage, ni en esprit aux Européens. So dated by Roubaud. BF , he says, was writing to a friend in Paris after the appearance of Cornelius de Pauw’s Recherches philosophiques sur les Américains …,...
17From Benjamin Franklin to Mrs. [James?] Alcock, [24 September? 1773] (Franklin Papers)
ALS (letterbook draft): American Philosophical Society At the Request of Dr. Hawkesworth I am to mention to you what occurr’d to me on reading the Copy of Mr. Alcock’s Letter, and in Conversation with the Dr. on your Affairs. There is no Grant of Land as yet to be obtained from those concern’d in the new Colony, their Grant from the Crown not having yet pass’d the Seals. With so many Children...
18From Benjamin Franklin to James Alexander, 15 August 1745 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : American Philosophical Society I return you herewith your Draughts, with a Copy of one of them per Mr. Evans and a few Lines relating to it from him. I wrote to Mr. Parker last Post that they might be got done in Boston by one Turner who is said to be a good Engraver. Our only tolerable Engraver here will not undertake the Jobb. And for my own Part I would rather chuse you should get...
19From Benjamin Franklin to James Alexander, 1753 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Benjamin Franklin, Experiments and Observations on Electricity (London, 1769), pp. 282–3. Suppose a tube of any length open at both ends, and containing a moveable wire of just the same length, that fills its bore. If I attempt to introduce the end of another wire into the same tube, it must be done by pushing forward the wire it already contains; and the instant I press and move...
20From Benjamin Franklin to James Alexander and Cadwallader Colden with Short Hints towards a Scheme for Uniting the … (Franklin Papers)
Copy: New-York Historical Society; also transcript: Library of Congress The Pennsylvania commissioners to the Albany Congress left Philadelphia on Monday morning, June 3, and arrived at New York on the afternoon of Wednesday, the 5th. Some of them, especially Richard Peters, were active during the next three days buying various goods for the Pennsylvania present to the Indians, apparently...
21From Benjamin Franklin to William Alexander, 3 November 1772 (Franklin Papers)
ALS (letterbook draft): Library of Congress On my Return to Town I found your Favour, with the Schemes of your Lottery, to which I wish Success, and besides ordering some Tickets for my self, I have spoken well of it on every Occasion; but I find little Inclination among my Acquaintance to engage in Lotteries at such a Distance, and one cannot be very open in promoting them, it being contrary...
22Four Letters of Introduction for Joseph Priestley, 20–21 August 1774 (Franklin Papers)
ALS (drafts): Library of Congress In late August Joseph Priestley left with his patron, Lord Shelburne, for a Continental tour. It included the Low Countries and the Rhineland and ended in October in Paris, where Priestley demonstrated some of his experiments with gases and discussed them with Lavoisier in the first meeting between those two giants of chemistry. Franklin gave Priestley...
23Presentment of the Philadelphia Grand Jury, 3 January 1745 (Franklin Papers)
AD : Historical Society of Pennsylvania To the Worshipful the Mayor, the Recorder and the rest of the Justices of the City of Philadelphia. The Grand Jury of the said City, met at the present Sessions, do, in Compliance with the Direction of the Court, [make] the following particular Presentments of unlawful Bakehouses, Coopers Shops, Disorderly Houses, &c. but believing from the Reprimand...
24From Benjamin Franklin to John Alleyne, 9 August 1768 (Franklin Papers)
ALS (draft): American Philosophical Society This well known letter was apparently first published in The Gentleman’s Magazine , LIX (1789), 384–5; the printed version differs substantially from the draft in only a few passages, noted below. Little is known about John Alleyne: he was the son of Thomas Alleyne of Queen Street, Westminster, was admitted to the Middle Temple in 1767, married Nancy...
25From Benjamin Franklin to John Alleyne, 15 October 1773 (Franklin Papers)
ALS (draft): American Philosophical Society; printed in John Alleyne, The Legal Degrees of Marriage Stated and Considered, in a Series of Letters to a Friend (2nd ed., London, 1775), appendix, pp. 1–2. I have never heard upon what Principles of Policy the Law was made prohibiting the Marriage of a Man with his former Wife’s Sister, nor have I ever been able to conjecture any political...
26From Benjamin Franklin to John Almon, 7 November 1774 (Franklin Papers)
AL : Harvard University Library Dr. Franklin presents his Compliments to Mr. Almon, and sends him a M.S. which he has perus’d and thinks well written so as probably to be acceptable to the Publick at this time. If Mr. Almon should be of the same Opinion, it is at his Service. Addressed: Mr Almon This note and the one from Almon below, Dec. 6, are the only extant communications between BF and...
27From Benjamin Franklin to a Member of the Royal Society, 26 November 1772 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : American Philosophical Society The Council of the Royal Society having put Sir John Pringle, Bart. in nomination for President; and being myself persuaded from what I know of his Learning in general, his thorough Acquaintance with Experimental Philosophy, his constant Attendance at our Meetings, and his extensive Reputation in the Republick of Letters throughout Europe, that he would...
28From Benjamin Franklin to John Antill, 18 February 1774 (Franklin Papers)
ALS (letterbook draft): American Philosophical Society Before I had an Opportunity of answering your Letter, I was displac’d from my Office, which puts it out of my Power to do you any Service in what you propose, and makes a more particular Answer unnecessary. I will however speak with Mr. Potts concerning his Letter, and acquaint you with the Result. Present my Best Respects to Mr. and Mrs....
29From Benjamin Franklin to Thomas Leech and Assembly Committee of Correspondence, 10 June 1758 (Franklin Papers)
LS : Yale University Library; draft (incomplete): American Philosophical Society In mine of May 13. I gave you a particular Account of the Hearing before the Attorney and Sollicitor General, on a Reference of Smith’s Petition; they have not yet made their Report, and would now I hear excuse themselves from doing it, as unnecessary, since they have heard that the Prisoners are discharged. But...
30From Benjamin Franklin to Thomas Leech and Assembly Committee of Correspondence, 13 May 1758 (Franklin Papers)
LS with ALS postscript: Yale University Library I receiv’d yours of February 6. with the Votes and other Papers relating to the Commitment of Moore and Smith. We immediately took Advice upon them, and engaged Counsel. It was however some Time before we heard any Thing from the other Side. At length we had Notice from the Attorney and Sollicitor General, that Smith’s Petition was referr’d to...