1From 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...
2From 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...