From Benjamin Franklin to William Temple Franklin, 13 September 1784
To William Temple Franklin
ALS: American Philosophical Society
Passy, Sept. 13. 1784
My dear Child,
I received last Night yours of the 7th. & am glad to hear you are quit of your Fever. You are well advis’d to continue taking the Bark. There is an English Proverb that says, An Ounce of Prevention is worth a Pound of Cure. It is particularly true with regard to the Bark and an Intermittent.—4
I consent to your going with your Father, and to your Stay in England till the Middle of October.—
Don’t omit writing to me by every Post. The uncertain State of your Health makes me more anxious to hear from you.
I wrote to you that I had not suffer’d by going in a Carriage to Auteuil. I afterwards had reason to think Otherwise, tho’ it was not much. It has however discourag’d my repeating the Experiment. The Swedish Ambassador5 has press’d me much to dine this day with him & Prince Henry,6 but I thought myself oblig’d to refuse him.— I walk’d however to Auteuil on Saturday to dine with Mr A. &c. with whom I go on comfortably.—
I have procur’d a Sauf Conduit for B.7 and he leaves us tomorrow. Mr Ws. will supply his Place.8
Your Room-Floor was all taken up, the Timbers being found so rotten that one might crumble them between the Fingers. New ones are laid in Mortar, and the whole left open to dry before the Boards are replac’d. As your Stay will be longer, we may give more time for the Drying, to prevent your being incommoded with any remaining Dampness.9
Get me a Book call’d Miscellanies by Daines Barrington, Esqr.1
Give my Love to your Father.
Remember me affectionately to all enquiring Friends.
I am ever your loving Grandfather
B. Franklin
M. & Made. Brillon with whom I am to Breakfast this Morning, have charg’d me with mille choses to say to you on their Behalf.— Ben sends his Love, & his Duty to his Uncle.—
Mr le Veillard still continues low & weak.—
Addressed: To / Wm. T. Franklin, Esqr / No 5. Devonshire Street / Portland Road / London
Notation: B. Franklin Sept. 13. 1784.—
4. BF gave the same advice to Rev. Samuel Johnson in 1750, regarding the use of bark for fevers: IV, 63.
5. Staël von Holstein.
6. Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig, prince of Prussia (1726–1802), commonly known as Heinrich or Henri, was the younger brother of Frederick II. He rose to the rank of general in the Prussian army and was regarded as a skillful diplomat. Both a Francophile and a lover of the arts and sciences, the prince visited Paris from the late summer to the end of October, 1784. He traveled under the pseudonym of the Count d’Oels, but his identity was an open secret. The prince regularly frequented the Académie française and also attended meetings of the Académie royale des inscriptions et belles-lettres, the Académie des sciences, and the Société royale de médecine: ADB; Chester V. Easum, Prince Henry of Prussia: Brother of Frederick the Great (Madison, Wis., 1942), pp. 9, 317–27.
7. Bondfield. BF thanked Vergennes in his letter of Oct. 18, below. Having lost the lawsuit that James Price had brought against him (for which see XL, 54, 207, 246), Bondfield would have been vulnerable to arrest while traveling.
8. JW arrived in Passy on either Sept. 13 or 15—members of the household differ in their accounts—for what would be an extended visit: L’Air de Lamotte to WTF, Sept. 15, 1784 (APS); BFB’s journal, entry of Sept. 16.
9. Workmen discovered the problem shortly after WTF left. L’Air de Lamotte kept WTF up to date on the renovations. On Sept. 15 he estimated that the work would take another three to four weeks. Five weeks later he reported that the floor had been finished and all the walls repainted: L’Air de Lamotte to WTF, Aug. 30, Sept. 5 and 15, Oct. 3 and 21, 1784 (all at the APS).
1. Daines Barrington’s Miscellanies (London, 1781) includes essays on Arctic exploration, trees, mammals, and birds (including “Whether the Turkey was Known before the Discovery of America”), as well as an account of Mozart as a child prodigy in London.