From Benjamin Franklin to David Hartley, [29 April 1778]
To David Hartley
Reprinted from William Temple Franklin, ed., Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin . . . (4to ed.; 3 vols., London, 1817–18), II, 249.
[April 29, 17786]
I thank you for your kind caution, but having nearly finished a long life, I set but little value on what remains of it. Like a draper, when one chaffers with him for a remnant, I am ready to say, “As it is only the fag-end, I will not differ with you about it, take it for what you please.”7 Perhaps the best use such an old fellow can be put to, is to make a martyr of him,
B.F.
[Note numbering follows the Franklin Papers source.]
6. In the preceding letter Hartley said that he was leaving within hours; this reply must therefore have been almost immediate.
7. He had used the same analogy when leaving for France: above, XXII, 625.