21Promissory Note to John Phillips, 5 [?] May 1724 (Franklin Papers)
DS : Historical Society of Pennsylvania I Promise to Pay or Cause to be paid unto John Phillips Bookseller The Just Sum of Three pounds Three Shilling In money by January next as witness my hand John Phillips (1701–1763), opened a bookshop on the south side of Boston Town House, 1723. He was subsequently deacon of Brattle Street Church, colonel of the Boston Regiment, captain and treasurer of...
22A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, 1725 (Franklin Papers)
A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain. London: Printed in the Year MDCCXXV . (Yale University Library) As a journeyman in Samuel Palmer’s printing house in Bartholomew’s Close Franklin worked on the third edition of William Wollaston’s The Religion of Nature Delineated . Some of the author’s arguments “not appearing ... well-founded,” he composed “a little metaphysical...
23From Benjamin Franklin to Sir Hans Sloane, 2 June 1725 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : British Museum Having lately been in the Nothern Parts of America, I have brought from thence a Purse made of the Stone Asbestus, a Piece of the Stone, and a Piece of Wood, the Pithy Part of which is of the same Nature, and call’d by the Inhabitants, Salamander Cotton. As you are noted to be a Lover of Curiosities, I have inform’d you of these; and if you have any Inclination to purchase...
24Plan of Conduct, 1726 (Franklin Papers)
MS not found; reprinted from Robert Walsh, “Life of Benjamin Franklin,” Delaplaine’s Repository of the Lives and Portraits of Distinguished Americans (Philadelphia, 1815–17), II , 51–2. “Perhaps the most important Part” of the foregoing Journal, Franklin wrote in his autobiography, was “the Plan to be found in it which I formed at Sea, for regulating my future Conduct in Life.” The plan does...
25Journal of a Voyage, 1726 (Franklin Papers)
MS not found; reprinted from WTF, Memoirs , 4to edit., I , Appendix, i-xix; also transcript: Library of Congress. The transcript of this Journal was made from Franklin’s manuscript, and from it William Temple Franklin printed the text. Thus the transcript is one step closer to the lost original. The printed text is followed here, however, because of the mutilated state and uncertain...
26From Benjamin Franklin to Jane Franklin, 6 January 1727 (Franklin Papers)
MS not found; reprinted from Duane, Works , VI , 3. I am highly pleased with the account captain Freeman gives me of you. I always judged by your behaviour when a child that you would make a good, agreeable woman, and you know you were ever my peculiar favourite. I have been thinking what would be a suitable present for me to make, and for you to receive, as I hear you are grown a celebrated...
27Epitaph, 1728 (Franklin Papers)
Autograph MS : Yale University Library; another autograph MS : Richard Gimbel, New Haven, Conn. (1959); facsimile printed in Charles John Smith, Historical and Literary Curiosities (London, 1840). Three autograph texts of the Epitaph are known—two in manuscript, one a facsimile of the now lost Upcott holograph. Each differs from the other two, and all vary, significantly or in details, from...
28Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion, 20 November 1728 (Franklin Papers)
Autograph MS : Library of Congress; also transcript: Library of Congress Franklin mentioned this private liturgy in his autobiography. Though he had had a conventional religious upbringing and contributed to the support of the Presbyterian meeting in Philadelphia, he seldom attended public worship, preferring to use Sundays for his own studies. Once, however, persuaded to go to church, he went...
29Martha Careful and Caelia Shortface, 28 January 1729 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in The American Weekly Mercury , January 28, 1728/9. When Samuel Keimer forestalled Franklin’s plan to publish a newspaper by announcing that he would publish one of his own, Franklin expressed his resentment through the satirical essays of The Busy-Body (see below, p. 113). The Busy-Body, however, was not the first to ridicule Keimer. Plodding methodically through the alphabet of...
30The Busy-Body, No. 1, 4 February 1729 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in The American Weekly Mercury , February 4, 1728/9. Franklin and Hugh Meredith decided in 1728 to start a newspaper in opposition to Bradford’s American Weekly Mercury . Samuel Keimer learned of this plan from George Webb, to whom Franklin incautiously revealed it when the former applied for employment as a journeyman, and forestalled the new printing firm by publishing, October 1,...