1From Benjamin Franklin to Samuel Cooper, 8 June 1770 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : British Museum This letter contains Franklin’s first extant response to the Boston Massacre. He mentions it in closing, almost in passing, but news of it certainly underlay his discussion of the larger issue of a standing army in America. That discussion led him on to the argument, more carefully worked out than ever before, that for a century past Parliament had usurped an authority...
2From Benjamin Franklin to Samuel Franklin, 8 June 1770 (Franklin Papers)
Reprinted from [Jared Sparks, ed.,] A Collection of the Familiar Letters and Miscellaneous Papers of Benjamin Franklin (Boston, 1833), pp. 132–3. I received your kind letter of the 23d of March. I was happy to find that neither you, nor any of your family, were in the way of those murderers. I hope that before this time the town is quite freed from such dangerous and mischievous inmates. I...
3To Benjamin Franklin from Thomas Gilpin, 8 June 1770: extract (Franklin Papers)
Extract: reprinted from “Memoir of Thomas Gilpin,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography , XLIX (1925), 313. As the late repeal of the acts in England more fully developes itself the singularity of its not taking effect till December next makes it appear the more as if the ministry had adopted a system of traps and decoys. But they have alarmed the game and it will require...
4[Diary entry: 8 June 1770] (Washington Papers)
8. Dined at the Club and Spent the Evening in my own Room.
5[Diary entry: 8 June 1770] (Washington Papers)
8. Cloudy & now and then Misty. In the Evening very hard rain. Wind abt. So. West.