183481The Captivity of William Henry, 23–28 June 1768 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in The London Chronicle , June 23–25, 25–28, 1768; autograph fragment in American Philosophical Society. The following essay poses a problem of authorship that cannot be conclusively solved. The essay itself is almost beyond doubt a hoax. Its ostensible purpose is to introduce the reader to a book which, insofar as negative evidence can be trusted, was never written. Its real purpose...
183482To Benjamin Franklin from James Parker, 15 July 1766 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : American Philosophical Society On a Supposition that this may find you not embarked yet, on your Return home, I adventure to write once more: to acknowledge the Receipt of yours of May 9th. I think I told you in my last per Capt. Davis, my Reasons for delaying yet to print a News-paper, that is in Hopes of getting a Settlement with Holt, which he has promised to get done in three Months,...
183483Editorial Note (Washington Papers)
editorial note : The following weather diary for the first five months of 1780 was kept at Morristown, N.J., during GW’s second winter encampment there during the Revolution. It is one of the two surviving diaries for the war period. It represents one of the earliest instances of GW’s interest in keeping a weather record while away from Mount Vernon. The manuscript is neat, uniform, showing...
183484Editorial Note on the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety, 30 June 1775 (Franklin Papers)
On June 30, 1775, in response to a recommendation from the Philadelphia committee of inspection and observation, the Pennsylvania Assembly created a committee of safety. Twenty-five members were named, Franklin among them. The committee’s function was military: to call into service as many associators as it thought necessary, to pay them, and to supply their necessities; to encourage the...
183485Editorial Note (Adams Papers)
On 14 May 1782, two days after John Adams moved into the new American legation, John Thaxter inventoried the household furnishings. On 16 Oct., the day before Adams left The Hague for Paris and the peace negotiations, Thaxter likely reviewed his inventory, focusing on the glass- and dinnerware, to determine what had been added since 14 May or was missing or broken (see No. I, note 1 , below)....
183486Settling the Spanish Accounts Editorial Note (Jay Papers)
Not knowing when he left Madrid in May of 1782 whether or not he would return after completing his assignment in Paris, Jay decided to keep for the time being the rented home his family had been occupying. He departed for France before either his personal accounts in Spain or those of the government could be settled, leaving such matters in the charge of William Carmichael, secretary of the...
183487Editorial Note on Remedies for the Stone, 1782 (Franklin Papers)
Franklin received dozens of remedies for the stone during his stay in France, from friends and strangers alike. Most were unsolicited and many are undated. We have determined that most of the undated remedies were sent in response to later episodes; they will be noted in future volumes. The rest we describe here at their earliest possible date, following Franklin’s first attack. All of them...
183488Introductory Note: Outline for George Washington’s Fifth Annual Address to Congress, [November 1793] (Hamilton Papers)
In the period immediately preceding George Washington’s Fifth Annual Address to Congress on December 3, 1793, the President and the members of his cabinet held a series of meetings at which the contents of the message were discussed. Thomas Jefferson’s accounts of these meetings in the “Anas” indicate that he and Edmund Randolph disagreed with Hamilton on several occasions and that the...
183489Enclosure A: [List of Petitions for Compensations for Supplies], [16 April 1792] (Hamilton Papers)
Petition of Lewis Van Woert, Petition of John Holbrook, Jacob Green and others surviving partners of Nathaniel Green & Co. Ludwig Kuhn, Levy Bartleson, Abiel Smith, William Harris, Webb and White, Benjamin Van Fossan, Administrator of Peter Van Fossan. John Crumpton, and Griffith Jones.
183490Editorial Note (Jefferson Papers)
In crafting his response to James Fishback’s letter of 5 June 1809, Jefferson completed a draft that argued passionately and at length against intolerance and forced conformity in religion. Possibly reflecting that his letter was outspoken enough to create controversy and that he knew very little about Fishback or his discretion, Jefferson then substituted a briefer and less revealing version,...
183491From Benjamin Franklin to Cadwalader Evans, 9 May 1766 (Franklin Papers)
MS not found; reprinted from Samuel Hazard, ed., Hazard’s Register of Pennsylvania xvi, No. 5 (August 1, 1835), 65. I received your kind letter of March 3, and thank you for the Intelligence and Hints it contained. I wonder at the Complaint you mentioned. I always considered writing to the Speaker as writing to the Committee. But if it is more to their Satisfaction that I should write to them...
183492Biographical Data (Washington Papers)
Information on the persons mentioned by GW during his stay on the island is in most instances scant. What follows is data obtained both from standard biographical references and from documents in the Barbados Department of Archives at Black Rock. The archives have suffered much from the ravages of time and climate, and identifications are made more difficult by GW’s customary use of surnames...
183493From Benjamin Franklin to Baynton, Wharton & Morgan, [10 May 1766] (Franklin Papers)
Extract: reprinted from Clarence W. Alvord and Clarence E. Carter, eds., The New Régime 1765–1766 , in Collections of the Illinois Historical Library, xi (Springfield, Ill., 1916), 338. This is the first of three brief extracts from letters by Franklin, the originals of which cannot be found, expressing approval of the proposed western settlement. All three have been tentatively dated May 10,...
183494Editorial Note: Reply to a Cherokee Delegation, 3 July 1801 (Jefferson Papers)
On Tuesday, 30 June 1801, “a Deputation from the Cherokee Nation of Indians on behalf of the said Nation” met with Henry Dearborn at the War Office. The delegation consisted of five Cherokee chiefs, their interpreter, Charles Hicks, and an assistant interpreter. The chief clerk of the War Department, John Newman, apparently kept the minutes of the conference. A chief called The Glass was the...
183495Notes on a Cabinet Meeting, 8 October 1804 (Jefferson Papers)
1804. Oct. 8. Present the 4. Secretaries. Yrujo’s and C. Pinckney’s communicns submitted. Cevallos’s 1st. condn as to giving time for commencement of Commissn. all agree we may fix a day with Yrujo not exceeding 6. months hence. say nothing which shall weaken our claims under the 6th. article, and repeat the explanation of the 4th. & 11th. article of the act of Congress already given him, and...
183496“Homespun”: Further Defense of Indian Corn, 15 January 1766 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in The Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser , January 15, 1766. This is the first of two letters Goddard reprinted in the Pennsylvania Chronicle , March 16–23, 1767, the authorship of which William Franklin later also attributed to his father. On January 2, writing as “Homespun,” he had replied briefly to aspersions on Indian corn by “Vindex Patriae” (above, pp. 7–8), and that writer had...
183497Request for Bids, 4 November 1789 (Hamilton Papers)
NOTICE is hereby given, that Proposals will be received at the office of the Secretary of the Treasury to the 5th day of December next, inclusively, for the supply of all rations which may be required for the use of the United States at the posts of West-Point, on Hudsons River, and of Springfield on Connecticut River, from the first day of January to the last day of December, 1790, including...
183498Enclosure: Silvanus Walker to Daniel Stevens, 1 September 1791 (Hamilton Papers)
Agreeable to your request I am to inform you that there is no manufactories carried on in the interior parts of this State only in private families; and they in general manufactor as much as they commonly wear a few samples of which I have enclosed you but am convinced from the small knowledge I acquir’d of that business and situation of that part of the country if the people could meet with...
183499To James Madison from an Unidentified Correspondent, 5 October 1813 (Madison Papers)
There is most shamefull conduct going on here. One John Tappan a verry religious man—and others—say B & C. Adams Tappan & Searle—Israel Thorndike—David Hinkley—a base sett of Tories—do enter Goods at Bath under Judge Sewall and Bond them by Apraisement in the most corrupt manner—there is now a cargo in their valud. at $300.000. I am told from good authority that John Tappan claimd 50 pacages...
183500Congress Debates the Commissioners’ Conduct Editorial Note (Jay Papers)
The General Washington reached Philadelphia on 12 March with the preliminary articles of peace and the accompanying dispatches, among them Jay’s long letter to the secretary for foreign affairs of 17 November 1782 . Captain Barney had sailed from France three days before the general peace had been concluded, thereby removing the commissioners’ substantial achievements from the context in which...
183501Petition of Thomas Jefferson and Others to the Virginia General Assembly, [before 13 December 1810] (Jefferson Papers)
To The General Assembly of Virginia , the Petition of the Subscribers, Inhabitants of the Counties of Albemarle , Louisa & Fluvanna , Sheweth: that the navigation of The Rivanna river from the Point of Fork to Milton , free from the obstacles, which at present impede it, is an object of great and general public utility, and would be particularly beneficial to all that tract of country...
183502Editorial Note (Adams Papers)
The constable of Roxbury had conveyed John Chaddock (alias Chadwick, Chattuck, or Shattuck), his wife, three children, and assorted household goods, to Brookline in January 1767, pursuant to a warrant of removal issued by a Roxbury justice of the peace. In 1760 the selectmen of Roxbury had warned a John Chaddock, or Chadwick, and family, out of the town after a two months’ stay. They now...
183503Editorial Note (Jefferson Papers)
James Madison was on poor terms with James Monroe after the latter’s abortive bid for the presidency in 1808 and accompanying flirtation with the Richmond Junto and the Tertium Quids led by John Randolph of Roanoke . Ever since his final departure from Washington , Jefferson had been anxious to see an end to this rift. He assured Madison on 30 March that Monroe had severed most of his ties to...
183504Editorial Note: Jefferson’s Opinion on the Treaties with France (Jefferson Papers)
Thomas Jefferson’s carefully qualified opinion in favor of the continued validity of the 1778 treaties of alliance and commerce with France was designed to resolve a neutrality question of fundamental importance raised by Alexander Hamilton in response to the arrival in Philadelphia early in April 1793 of reliable intelligence of the French Republic’s declaration of war on Great Britain and...
183505Editorial Note: The Case of Mace Freeland (Jefferson Papers)
This case, along with others that came to him during 1782, reveals Jefferson as turning seriously to the practice of the law. Perhaps the fact that the case of Mace Freeland seemed to offer an opportunity to reinforce those “principles of moderation and justice which principally endear a republican government to it’s citizens” may have induced him to accept it. At any rate on 12 Feb. 1782,...
183506An Address of the Convention of the Representatives of the State of New York to Their Constituents Editorial Note (Jay Papers)
Lord Cornwallis took Fort Lee on 20 November 1776, and for the next five weeks the Continental army retreated across New Jersey closely pursued by an enemy seemingly on the verge of final victory. In that dark hour, two major spokesmen for the American cause, Thomas Paine and John Jay, penned inspirational essays rallying disheartened Patriots to the defense of the nation. Although Paine’s...
183507To Benjamin Franklin from ———, [on or after 14 October 1783] (Franklin Papers)
AL : American Philosophical Society Je crois devoir vous prévenir que Confiér les affaires de Mr Chaffert a de Baumont C’est a proprement dire donner la Brebis a garder au Loup ce dernier ayant fait cent Coquinneries dont quatre l’ont conduit en prison la derniére a la fin de juillet sans compter le courant Et notament des billets quil s’est fait faire par Chaffert soit disant pour Nouriture....
183508From Benjamin Franklin to William Franklin, [30 September 1766] (Franklin Papers)
MS not found; reprinted from extract in [Jared Sparks, ed.,] A Collection of the Familiar Letters and Miscellaneous Papers of Benjamin Franklin (Boston, 1833), p. 279. I have just had a visit from General Lyman, and a good deal of conversation on the Ilinois scheme. He tells me, that Mr. Morgan, who is under-secretary of the Southern department, is much pleased with it; and we are to go...
183509To James Madison from Boston Fishermen, [ca. 21 February 1814] (Madison Papers)
The Petition of the Subscribers, Fishermen of Boston and its vicinity, humbly sheweth, That many of them have, inadvertently and without due reflection, signed a petition to the Legislature of Massachusetts, praying for relief from the restrictions imposed upon them by the “Act laying an Embargo on all ships and vessels in the ports and harbors of the United States.” They have since learnt,...
183510To James Madison from an Unidentified Correspondent, 17 August 1814 (Madison Papers)
As it appears you are wholly insensible of what is doing here, or intirely disregard the consequences of having such immense quantities of British goods brought into market, even under the eyes of the Custom House officers, and their Deputy’s who disregard there oaths, and are bribed to hold there tongues, and be out of the way—do you not know the effects—that it dreans the vaults of all the...