From Benjamin Franklin to Cadwallader Colden, 24 September 1747
To Cadwallader Colden
ALS: New-York Historical Society
Philada. Sept. 24. 1747
Sir
I have one of your Histories come in among some Books sent me per Mr. Strahan: But Osborne I understand has sent 50 to Mr. Read per Recommendation of Mr. Collinson. I should sell them more readily than he can, I imagine; and he talks of putting them into my hands.4 Are any of them arriv’d in N York?
Enclos’d are two Letters for you. No others are yet come to hand; but perhaps we shall find more when the Ship is unloaded; for Mr. Collinson’s Letters are often in Trunks among Goods, &c. I should be glad to know if Mr. Darling,5 by whom I wrote a Line to you, had my Papers on Electricity. I am, Sir, Your most humble Servant
B Franklin
Addressed: To The honble Cadwalader Colden Esq New York Free B Franklin
4. Colden Paps., III, 402; above, p. 170. James Read gave up bookselling this year. BF offered to sell the 50 copies but withdrew the offer when he and Hall decided they were too expensive. At 5s. the work sold poorly in London and the printer remaindered it in 1750, at a loss of more than £30. Ibid., IV, 66, 103, 271; VII, 344.
5. For Thomas Darling, see above, p. 108 n.