47671From Benjamin Franklin to Castries, 30 October 1780 (Franklin Papers)
Copy: Library of Congress Tho’ late, it is with great Pleasure that I congratulate your Excellency, on the high and most important Office in which the discerning Eye of your souveireign has lately thought fit to place you. A severe Access of the Gout which has kept me for a fortnight past in continual Pain & Fever, prevented my sooner waiting on you with my Respects. They are however not the...
47672From Benjamin Franklin to David Hartley: Two Letters, 22 February 1779 (Franklin Papers)
(I) LS , AL (draft), copy, and transcript: Library of Congress; (II) transcript and incomplete copy: Library of Congress I received your Favor of Jany 23d containing the Answer you had received from the Board of Sick and Hurt, in which they say they are taking Measures for the immediate Sending to France the Number of Americans first proposed to be changed, &c. I have heard nothing since of...
47673From Benjamin Franklin to David Hartley, 8 June 1778 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : Stanley R. Becker, East Hampton, New York (1976); transcript: Library of Congress I wrote you a few Lines the 25th of last Month, mentioning that we had here 200 English Prisoners, and desiring you to propose an Exchange. I hope you receiv’d my Letter and that I shall soon be favour’d with an Answer. We are oblig’d to keep the Prisoners on Shipboard where I doubt they cannot be...
47674Paragraph on the Treatment of Massachusetts, 14 March 1774 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in The Public Advertiser , March 14, 1774. It is proper the Public should be informed, that while every Species of Falshood, Invective and Abuse is daily uttered in every Newspaper against the People of Massachusetts Bay; while they are branded as Rebels, Insurgents, &c. while W——e is hired to calumniate them in Speeches and M——t in Pamphlets; the Representatives are absolutely...
47675From Benjamin Franklin to Francis Bernard, 21 April 1764 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : The Hyde Collection, Mrs. Donald F. Hyde, Somerville, N.J. (1955) Mr. Williams has acknowledg’d the Receipt of the £12 12 s. 0 d. Dr. Allison is out of Town, and not expected home these 10 Days. As soon as he returns I will speak to him, and write you his Answer. I communicated your Favour of the 1st. ult. to my Son, who desired me to return his grateful Acknowledgements for your kind...
47676[Elegy on My Sister Franklin, 1722] (Franklin Papers)
Copy: University of Pennsylvania Library The University of Pennsylvania acquired in 1934 an eighty-six line “Elegy on my Sister Franklin,” undated but written in an eighteenth-century hand, and signed “B.F.” The Elegy opens as follows: The manuscript is a sheet of four pages and appears to be a copy of an earlier version, for the penman inadvertently skipped lines 35 and 36, but put them in at...
47677To John Adams from Benjamin Franklin, 7 November 1781 (Adams Papers)
I have been honoured with the following Letters from your Excellency during the last Month, viz. of the 4th. 10th. 18th. 22d. 22d. 25th. 26th. and 27th. which I should have answered sooner, but that I waited for a safe Opportunity, having reason to believe that all your Letters to me by the post are opened, and apprehending the same of mine to you. I send herewith the Covers and Seals of those...
47678From Benjamin Franklin to Deborah Franklin, 15 January 1756 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : American Philosophical Society We move this Day for Gnadenhutten. If you have not Cash sufficient, call upon Mr. Moore, the Treasurer, with that Order of the Assembly, and desire him to pay you £100 of it. If he has not Cash in hand Mr. Norris, (to whom my Respects) will advance it for him. We shall have with us, about 130 Men, and shall endeavour to act cautiously, so as to give the...
47679New Fables, 2 January 1770 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in The Public Advertiser , January 2, 1770 The first ascription of these fables to Franklin was by Verner Crane, and his evidence is conclusive. When the second and third fables were composed, as distinct from published, is impossible to say; the genesis of the first goes back almost two years, although in the intervening period it changed considerably. NEW FABLES , humbly inscribed to...
47680From Benjamin Franklin to Henry Wilmot, 9 May 1761 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : American Philosophical Society I have received the Act you mention, and if tis convenient to you to call at my House on Monday morning any Hour before One, I shall be glad to see you and converse with you on the Subject; being with great Esteem, Sir, Your most obedient humble Servant. As in the case of Wilmot’s letter of May 8 (above, p. 314), to which this is a reply, I. Minis Hays...