42481To Benjamin Franklin from Jacques Barbeu-Dubourg, 8 May 1768 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : American Philosophical Society This is apparently the earliest surviving letter in a correspondence which, as the wording makes clear, had been going on for some time. Out of it was evolving a friendship that with the years grew in significance for both men. Jacques Barbeu-Dubourg (1709–79) had interests as broad as Franklin’s own and, like him, engaged in a range of activities that was...
42482From Benjamin Franklin to Sir John Pringle, 10 May 1768 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Benjamin Franklin, Experiments and Observations on Electricity … London, 1769), pp. 492–6. You may remember that when we were travelling together in Holland, you remarked that the trackschuyt in one of the stages went slower than usual, and enquired of the boatman, what might be the reason; who answered, that it had been a dry season, and the water in the canal was low. On being...
42483To Benjamin Franklin from Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, 10 May 1768 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : American Philosophical Society J’ai êté infiniment sensible à votre bonté en apprenant par Monsieur le Docteur Quesnay que vous aviez daigné me chercher et vous informer de moi pendant votre dernier séjour à Paris. Malheureusement pour moi vous n’avez vu M. Quesnay que dans les deux ou trois jours qui ont precede immediatement votre départ; Je n’en ai êté instruit que le jour même où...
42484To Benjamin Franklin from William Franklin, 10 May 1768 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : American Philosophical Society I receiv’d your Favors of Jany. 9, 29, Feby. 13, and Mar. 13. I think I before acknowledg’d the Receipt of the Remainder of the Postscript of Decr. 19. It is not in my Power to give such particular Answers to them as I could wish, being now busily engag’d with the Assembly, who are just on the Point of Rising. Besides I am in doubt whether this will find...
42485To Benjamin Franklin from Martha Johnson, 10 May 1768 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : American Philosophical Society I Take this opertunity to write to you hoping this will find you in good helth as it lives me and samey. I hear by nancy you are aboute to leve England which I am very sorrey for as I am afraid I shante have the pleasuer of seeing you Before you goe as it will be very ill convenant [inconvenient] for me to leve my shope as I have no one I can trust to mind...
42486From Benjamin Franklin to Joseph Galloway, 14 May 1768 (Franklin Papers)
Reprinted from William Temple Franklin, ed., Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin, LL.D., F.R.S., &c. (quarto edition, 3 vols., London, 1817–18), II , 163–4. I received your favour of March 31. It is now with the messages &c. in the hands of the minister, so I cannot be more particular at present in answering it than to say, I should have a melancholy prospect in going home to...
42487From Benjamin Franklin to John Ross, 14 May 1768 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : Historical Society of Pennsylvania I received your Favour of March 13. and am extreamly concern’d at the Disorders on our Frontiers, and the extreme Debility if not wicked Connivance of our Government and Magistrates, which must make Property and even Life more and more insecure among us, if some effectual Remedy is not speedily apply’d. I have laid all the Accounts before the Ministry...
42488To Benjamin Franklin from James Boswell, [14 May 1768] (Franklin Papers)
AL : American Philosophical Society Mr. Boswell presents his compliments to Dr. Franklin and begs leave to put him in mind of his engagement to dine with him to day. Addressed: Dr. Franklin / at Mrs. Stephensons / Craven Street The date is established by Boswell’s description of the dinner, for which see Frank Brady and Frederick A. Pottle, eds., Boswell in Search of a Wife, 1766–1769 (New...
42489To Benjamin Franklin from James Parker, 14 May 1768 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : American Philosophical Society As I have little agreeable to say, and your Time must be much better employ’d than in reading any Thing I can say, I shall the less intrude on you. I imagined you would be on the Return before this: but I heard there was not that Expectation, I wrote you a few Days ago per Capt. Miller. My Son is about embarking, and perhaps may sail before this for London:...
42490To Benjamin Franklin from James Parker, 15 May 1768 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : American Philosophical Society This comes with my unhappy Son. How far he may be an Object of your Regard, is left entirely to your own Discretion. I have Nothing else to say in his Favour, but wish he may Merit some of your Good Will, which is all with our best Regards, from Your most obliged Servant Addressed: For / Benjamin Franklin, Esqr. / Craven-Street / London / per S.F: Parker
42491From Benjamin Franklin to the Printer of the Gazetteer, 18 May 1768 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in The Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser , May 18, 1768. In order to shew my countrymen the sentiments of the North Americans, I request you will publish in your paper the inclosed hand bill, which came over by the last ship from Philadelphia, and there is no doubt but great numbers of them have been dispersed in that and the other provinces. Franklin wrote only the first paragraph,...
42492To Benjamin Franklin from Georgia Assembly Committee of Correspondence, 19 May 1768 (Franklin Papers)
Letterbook copy: Georgia Historical Society From the Great opinion the Governor, Council and assembly have entertained of your integrity and abilities they have unanimously concurred in appointing you by an Ordinance agent to transact the affairs of this province in Great Britain, and we have now the pleasure of enclosing you an authentic Copy of the said Ordinance, by which you will see that...
42493To Benjamin Franklin from Deborah Franklin, 20[–23] May 1768 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : American Philosophical Society I have wrote to you by Capt. Folkner this is to go by Capt. Storrey by Folkner. I send the watch to be dun what Mrs. Stephenson and you pies all thow I menshoned a Wat[ch?] chaine by Capt. Sparkes I leve it an have no choyce of my one [own] and I know that Salley will be plesed with what is chose for her. This day I deliverd E Browns Close to Mr. Town to...
42494From Benjamin Franklin to Deborah Franklin, 25 May 1768 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : American Philosophical Society I thought Capt. Budden had been gone some Weeks since, but calling here just now, I find he is not sail’d but goes this Evening; so I write this Line to let you know that I continue well. I forget whether I told you in any preceding Letter that I have been at Bath and Bristol. At the latter Place I met Mr. Richardson, junr. who had Letters for me. I saw...
42495From Benjamin Franklin to Deborah Franklin, 11 June 1768 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : American Philosophical Society I received yours of April 22 and 24. and rejoice to hear that you continue well notwithstanding the Fatigues you must have undergone with poor Debby. Mr. Coleman is with me. The Surgeon from whom he hoped a Cure when he came over, being gone abroad, and his Return uncertain, he has chosen upon the best Advice, to submit to have the diseased part cut out,...
42496To Benjamin Franklin from Thomas-François Dalibard, 14 June 1768 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : American Philosophical Society J’ai bien reçu dans son tems la très obligeante lettre que vous m’avéz fait l’honneur de m’écrire au mois de Mars dernier; mais le Livre de Priestly qu’elle m’annonçoit, ne m’a été remis qu’environ trois semaines après la lettre. Le paquet de livres que M. Molini libraire à Paris attendoit de Londres, fut long-tems retardé en route, et quand il fut arrivé...
42497To Benjamin Franklin from Hannah Walker, 16 June 1768 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : American Philosophical Society We received your kind Letter with great joy to my Son for which great favour I return you a thousand thanks and Henery is over joyed at the thought of the Books you was Pleased to mention and my cousin was so Pleased that you was so kind to Answer his Letter that She has quite turned me off from being her Scrivener and has took Henery to write her Letters...
42498To Benjamin Franklin from James Parker, 17 June 1768 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : American Philosophical Society Yours of April 16, with Mr. Strahan’s Memorandum about Holt, I received per Packet. It is a bad Stroke for me, as I never had or received the Books, that I have been made to pay for, and shall never have any other Satisfaction for them. But I will not complain any more: I have now been sufficiently used to such Matters. It is possible, by the Time you...
42499The 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...
42500From Benjamin Franklin to Grey Cooper, 24 June 1768 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : Yale University Library Inclos’d I send, for the Ladies, a Piece of the Bark Cloth with which the new-discover’d People dress themselves. It was fast together, but I have split it, as you see; and it will still split farther into its original thin Pieces like Lace. You once express’d a little Partiality for Things of my Writing, which encourages me to send you two; one to which you have...
42501To Benjamin Franklin from James Parker, 29 June 1768: résumé (Franklin Papers)
ALS : American Philosophical Society [Dated June 29, 1768, this is virtually a duplicate of Parker’s letter of May 14.]
42502To Benjamin Franklin from Samuel Parker, 1 July 1768 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : American Philosophical Society Being engaged here at Deptford, ever since I had the Pleasure of waiting on you, hindered me from delivering you my Letter, and fearing I should not be at London in three or four Days, hope you will excuse my sending it: My best Respects wait upon you, and conclude myself Your very humble Servant Addressed: For/ Benjamin Franklin, Esqr: / Craven Street/...
42503From Benjamin Franklin to William Franklin, 2 July 1768 (Franklin Papers)
Reprinted from William Temple Franklin, ed., Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin, LL.D., F.R.S., &c. (quarto edition, 3 vols., London, 1817–18), II , 164–8. Since my last I have received yours of May 10 dated at Amboy, which I shall answer particularly by next week’s packet. I purpose now to take notice of that part wherein you say it was reported at Philadelphia I was to be...
42504From Benjamin Franklin to Joseph Galloway, 2 July 1768 (Franklin Papers)
Reprinted from William Temple Franklin, ed., Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin, LL.D., F.R.S., &c. (quarto edition, 3 vols. London, 1817–18), II , 168–9. Since my last nothing material has occurred here relating to American affairs, except the removal of Lord Clare from the head of the Board of Trade to the Treasury of Ireland, and the return of Lord Hillsborough to the...
42505From Benjamin Franklin to John Winthrop, 2 July 1768 (Franklin Papers)
Reprinted from William Temple Franklin, ed., Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin, LL.D., F.R.S., &c. (quarto edition, 3 vols., London, 1817–18), III , 370–4. You must needs think the time long that your instruments have been in hand. Sundry circumstances have occasioned the delay. Mr. Short, who undertook to make the telescope, was long in a bad state of health, and much in...
42506To Benjamin Franklin from Nathaniel Falconer, 3 July 1768 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : American Philosophical Society This is to acquaint you of my arrival after a Passage of five weeks and 3 Days. I left Mrs. Franklin and Mrs. Beech [Bache] well the 21st. of May and also the Governor having heard from him the Day before I saild. I have not sent your Letters at home by the Post. But shall waite on you with them as soon as I get up to London please to make my best...
42507To Benjamin Franklin from Richard Huck, 9 July 1768: résumé (Franklin Papers)
AL : American Philosophical Society [Saturday, July 9 (1768?). A dinner invitation from Dr. Huck for Friday next at four o’clock.] Richard Huck, who changed his name in 1777 to Huck-Saunders, had been an army surgeon in America during the French and Indian War. He returned to London, was appointed physician to the Middlesex Hospital in 1766 and to St. Thomas’s in 1768, and was in the medical...
42508To Benjamin Franklin from James Parker, 12 July 1768 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : American Philosophical Society I still continue to send you a Line or two on the Presumption you may possibly not have left England before this reaches you, and if you should be set out the Loss of this is not much: As I have little more to say than I have wrote, only that we continue still in the Old Way, rubbing through a World, in which some slide easier then others, but in which none...
42509From Benjamin Franklin to Mary Stevenson, 20 July 1768: phonetic spelling and transcription (Franklin Papers)
Transcribed from ALS (in phonetic spelling): American Philosophical Society Many writers, from the monk Orm in the early thirteenth century to George Bernard Shaw in the early twentieth, have experimented with methods of phonetic spelling. It was perhaps natural that Franklin, with his long exposure to the printed word and his varied and practical interests, should have been drawn into this...
42510Phonetic alphabet, with Franklin’s comments, [20 July? 1768] (Franklin Papers)
AD : American Philosophical Society The document that follows was in the papers of Mary Stevenson Hewson. They included many letters of hers to Franklin that were returned to her after his death, and they came down through her descendants to their eventual resting place in the American Philosophical Society. The presence among them of an undated document does not, of course, indicate that it...