51From Benjamin Franklin to David Hartley, 26 February 1778 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : New York Public Library; transcript: Library of Congress I receiv’d yours of the 18th and 20th. of this Month, with Lord North’s proposed Bills. The more I see of the Ideas and Projects of your Ministry, and their little Arts and Schemes of amusing and dividing us, the more I admire the prudent, manly and magnanimous Propositions contained in your intended Motion for an Address to the...
52From Benjamin Franklin to David Hartley, 12 February 1778 (Franklin Papers)
Copies: Archives du Ministère des affaires étrangères, Massachusetts Historical Society; transcript: Library of Congress A thousand Thanks for your so readily engaging in the Means of relieving our poor Captives, and the Pains you have taken, and the Advances you have made for that purpose. I received your kind Letter of the 3d Instant, and send you enclosed a Bill for £100. I much approve of...
53From Benjamin Franklin to David Hartley, 5 February 1778 (Franklin Papers)
Transcript: Library of Congress I am exceedingly obliged by your interesting yourself so warmly in behalf of those unhappy people. I understand you advanc’d money: Your bills on that account will be punctually paid. As yet I have heard of none. Understanding that a certain Person promised to make proposals for healing a certain Breach, I postpon’d and delayed a material Operation till I should...
54From Benjamin Franklin to David Hartley, 14 October[–11 December] 1777 (Franklin Papers)
Copies: Archives du Ministère des affaires étrangères, Library of Congress I received duly your Letter of May 2nd. 77. including a Copy of one you had sent me the Year before, which never came to hand, and which it seems has been the Case with some I wrote to you from America. Filled tho’ our Letters have always been, with Sentiments of Good Will to both Countries, and earnest Desires of...
55From Benjamin Franklin to David Hartley, 3 October 1775: extract (Franklin Papers)
Extract printed in Benjamin Vaughan, ed., Political, Miscellaneous, and Philosophical Pieces . . . Written by Benj. Franklin . . . (London, 1779), pp. 555–6; copy: D. A. F. H. H. Hartley Russell, on deposit in the Berkshire Record Office (1955); copy: Library of Congress I wish as ardently as you can do for peace, and should rejoice exceedingly in co-operating with you to that end. But every...
56From Benjamin Franklin to David Hartley, 12 September 1775 (Franklin Papers)
AL (draft): Library of Congress I have this Day received your Favours per Capt. Falconer, of which more in my next. With this I send you a number of Newspapers and Pamphlets, by which you will see Things are become serious here. Your Nation must stop short, and change its Measures, or she will lose the Colonies for ever. The Burning of Towns, and firing from Men of War on defenceless Cities...
57From Benjamin Franklin to David Hartley, 8 May 1775 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : Harvard University Library I arrived here on Friday Evening, and the next morning was unanimously chosen by the General Assembly a Delegate for the ensuing Congress, which is to meet on Wednesday. You will have heard before this reaches you of the Commencement of a Civil War; the End of it perhaps neither myself, nor you, who are much younger, may live to see. I find here all Ranks of...
58From Benjamin Franklin to David Hartley, 6 May 1775 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : Dartmouth College Library What as far as we know was the first letter Franklin wrote after landing was not to his son or sister or some close friend, as might be expected, but to an Englishman who three months earlier seems to have been no more than a casual acquaintance. In late February, when Hartley asked for information, Franklin furnished it in a formal, third-person note, and a few...