From Benjamin Franklin to Lorenzo Manini, 19 September 1784
To Lorenzo Manini
LS:3 Biblioteca Statale di Cremona
Passy, Sept. 19. 1784
Sir,
You did me a very great Pleasure when you sent me the American Letters, and gave me an Opportunity of reading that excellent Work, not less replete with sound Judgement and good Sense than with variety of Learning & Science; and I beg you to accept my thankful Acknowledgements. I am also extremely sensible of the honour of your Dedication.4
I sometime since put into the hands of Count Castiglioni a Book for you, which he kindly undertook to forward. It is the Constitutions of our American States which I caused to be translated and printed here,5 & which I imagined might possibly be agreable to you, or to the Author of the Letters. I now send enclos’d two little Pieces of my writing concerning America,6 hoping that they also may afford you some little Amusement. I pray you to present my Respects to Mr. il Presidente Carli, and my Thanks for his fine Defence of America, against the Attacks of that ill-informed and ill natured Writer who indeed speaks well of no-body without instantly repenting of it, & detracting the next minute.7 With great Regard, I have the honour to be, Sir, Your Brother Printer, & most Obedient Servant
B. Franklin
Sigr Manini
3. In the hand of BFB.
4. Manini was not the author of the dedicatory letter in question, published in vol. 1 of Gian Rinaldo Carli’s Le Lettere americane. It was, in fact, by Isidoro Bianchi. In the two sets of volumes Manini sent to BF, however, his own name appears as the dedication’s author; see XLI, 88–9.
5. Constitutions des treize Etats-Unis de l’Amérique (Paris, 1783); see XL, 376–7.
6. “Remarks concerning the Savages of North America” and “Information to Those Who Would Remove to America”, which BF had printed at Passy in both English and French editions: XLI, 412–23, 597–608. Since there is no indication that Manini read English, BF most likely sent the French imprints.
7. Cornelius de Pauw, whose influential thesis of the degeneracy of American peoples and animals (XIX, 197n; XXXVIII, 448–9n) was a favorite target of pro-American authors like Carli.