To Benjamin Franklin from the Marquess of Lansdowne, 11 [December] 1784
From the Marquess of Lansdowne9
ALS: Library of Congress
Bowood Park 11th. [December, 1784]1
Dear Sir
I am sorry that your Grandson did not stay long enough for me to shew him all the civility I wish’d in consequence of your recommendation.2 If he should ever find it desireable to settle in this Country, I shall be glad to do him any service, which lyes in my power.
I am oblig’d to you for your account of Mr. Mesmer— We have many such Gentry, but unhappily we have no Committees to detect them.
I am glad to hear upon the whole a good account of your Health from [the] Abbe Morellet—but I can[not le]arn whether you have been induc’d to try Adams’s Solvent for the Stone. I took the liberty of recommending it thro’ Mr. Vaughan,3 seeing the wonderfull effect it had upon Mr. Hamilton and some other persons— Mr. Hamilton is above 80 years old, and enjoys perfect Health, which he attributes to this Medicine, and with reason, for its wonderfull the quantity of Stone I may say that I have seen him void without pain, by means of it.4
I wish you your Health and your Country Happiness and Union,—whose prosperity I shall always look upon as intimately connected with that of G. Britain.
I am with very high Esteem [D]r. Sr. Your Faithfull Humble Servant
Lansdown
9. The new title given Lord Shelburne on Nov. 30; see Hartley to BF, Dec. 1.
1. The material used to seal this letter was tenacious enough to rip holes in all four layers of the folded sheet, presumably when it was opened. One of these holes removed the month and year. Dec. 11, 1784, is the earliest possible date. It is the first eleventh of a month after Shelburne’s title was changed, and after WTF left London (the subject of the first line).
2. BF to Shelburne, Aug. 25, above.
3. BF thanked Shelburne for the remedy Vaughan brought him in the fall of 1782—presumably Adams’ Solvent—but did not indicate that he had actually taken the medicine: XXXVIII, 132, 357. This cure for the stone was formulated by 1772 by the surgeon Sampson Perry, who is better known for his radical journalism during the 1790s: Joseph O. Baylen and Norbert J. Gossman, eds., Biographical Dictionary of Modern British Radicals (3 vols., Hassocks, Eng., and Atlantic Highlands, N.J., 1979–88), 1, 371–2.
4. Charles Hamilton, a well-born landscape gardener, contributed to the layout of the Bowood grounds and spent his later years in Bath: X, 151n; ODNB; Michael Symes, Mr. Hamilton’s Elysium: the Gardens of Painshill (London, 2010), pp. 46–9. In 1762, BF sent Hamilton what were apparently instructions for the erection of a lightning rod: X, 151, 305, 333, 400–1.