661From Benjamin Franklin to Cadwallader Colden, 28 February 1753 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : New-York Historical Society I return you herewith Professor Kanster’s Remarks. As far as I am able to judge, the Translation is just, and your Answer a good one. I am pleas’d with the Omission of that part of a Paragraph relating to the German and Pensilvanian Electricians, and have corrected the Copy as you direct. I have but one other Alteration to propose, which is, to omit some Part...
662Supplemental Experiments and Observations on Electricity, Part II, [March 1753] (Franklin Papers)
Supplemental Experiments and Observations on Electricity, Part II. Made at Philadelphia in America, by Benjamin Franklin, Esq; and Communicated in several Letters to P. Collinson, Esq; of London, F.R.S. London: Printed and sold by E. Cave, at St. John’s Gate. 1753. (Yale University Library) Franklin continued to send Peter Collinson reports of his electrical experiments through 1750–52, and...
663To Benjamin Franklin from James Bowdoin, [March 1753?] (Franklin Papers)
MS not found; reprinted from extract in Sparks, Works , VI , 161 n. By the post I received your favor, enclosing several printed letters relating to the transit of Mercury over the sun. A gentleman here, who is provided with the proper instruments, and well skilled in astronomy, intends to make the necessary observations; to whom, as well as to several others, I shall communicate said letters....
664Jonathan Todd to Jared Eliot, 6 March 1753 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : American Philosophical Society I number it among the fortunate Occurrences of my Life that I have been indulged an Interest in your Friendship. I wish I could better deserve it. Amongst many other agreable Pleasures this Way deriv’d, I esteem it a considerable One, to enjoy the Benefit of Seeing now and then Some entertaining Pieces communicated to your Self by Some of your ingenious...
665To Benjamin Franklin from Peter Collinson, 7 March 1753 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : Haverford College I hope Mine by First Ships with some Books for L:C: [Library Company] as per account on other side and for thyself was Abbe Nolet Letters—are come safe to hand. As Lord Bolingbroke in his Letters that I sent last [autu]mn has insinuated very severe reflections on the authenticity of the Old and New Testament, I have collected the several Replies and Vindications per the...
666From Benjamin Franklin to Jehu Curtis, 15 March 1753 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : Yale University Library We send herewith all the Bills in a Trunk, containing as follows 1s. 1s. 6d. 2s. 2s. 6d. 5s. 10s. 1st Sort 40 Quire, containing 4000 4000 4000 4000 — — 2d Sort 11
667To Benjamin Franklin from Aaron Burr, 20 March 1753 (Franklin Papers)
Letterbook copy: Andover-Newton Theological Seminary Your Febry. 28. with the enclos’d Letters was very acceptable. I am sorry we [are] not provid’d with Instruments to observe the approaching Transit of Mercury. But have long since been determined to be ready for Venus 1769. By Mr. Evans’s Advice I wrote to one Mr. Adams’s in London sending a Catalogue of Instruments for a philosophical...
668To Benjamin Franklin from Peter Collinson, 21 March 1753 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : American Philosophical Society By the Conveyance of our friend Mr. Watson whose Letter I inclose this will informe you the Abbe sent three books. I only send One by this Ship and another by the Next for fear of Accidents and if you give Mee Leave I will keep the third for my Self. You’l see the purport of Mr. Watsons Letter, the Booke is sent to Messr. Neat & Neave to Come in their...
669From Benjamin Franklin to James Bowdoin, 12 April 1753 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : Massachusetts Historical Society I have shipt 18 Glass Jarrs in Casks well pack’d, on board Capt. Branscombe for Boston. 6 of them are for you, the rest I understand are for the College. Leaf Tin, such as they use in silvering Looking Glasses, is best to coat them with; they should be coated to within about 4 or 5 Inches of the Brim. Cut the Tin into Pieces of the Form in the Margin, and...
670From Benjamin Franklin to Cadwallader Colden, 12 April 1753 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : New-York Historical Society I received your Favour of March 20. and a subsequent one without Date, containing the Description of Lord Macclesfield’s Mural Quadrant. No Vessel has sail’d hence for England these three Months, but one goes next Week by which I shall send your Answer to the German Professor, corrected as you direct. I see it is not without Reluctance that the Europeans will...
671From Benjamin Franklin to Jared Eliot, 12 April 1753 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : Yale University Library I received your Favour of March 26. and thank you for communicating to me, the very ingenious Letter from your Friend Mr. Todd, with whom, if it may be agreable to him, I would gladly entertain a Correspondence. I shall consider his Objections till next Post. I thank you also for the Hint concerning the Word Adhesion , which should be defin’d. When I speak of...
672From Benjamin Franklin to William Smith, 19 April 1753 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : Historical Society of Pennsylvania I received your Favour of the 11th Instant, with your new Piece on Education, which I shall carefully peruse; and give you my Sentiments of it as you desire, per next Post. I believe the young Gentlemen, your Pupils, may be entertain’d and instructed here in Mathematics and Philosophy to Satisfaction. Mr. Allison (who was educated at Edinburgh, or...
673To Benjamin Franklin from Thomas Ringgold, 2 [May?] 1753 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : Historical Society of Pennsylvania One Patrick Caron with us is the Man that took up Kelly one of the Murderers of Davis and This same Man has been taken up with us on Suspicion of being a Confederate in that affair but from all the Testimony that cou’d be procured to two severel Grand Jurys at our November and March Courts nothing is found against him and he is discharged, so that, no...
674From Benjamin Franklin to Jared Eliot, 3 May 1753 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : Yale University Library; also draft: American Philosophical Society I received your Essay last Post, and my Presses being at present engag’d in some publick Work that will not admit of Delay, I have engag’d Mr. Parker to print it out of hand at New York. You may expect to see it done in two or three Weeks. The Pacquet was not seal’d, and I observ’d that the Tables showing the Culture of...
675From Benjamin Franklin to William Smith, 3 May 1753 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : Historical Society of Pennsylvania Mr. Peters has just now been with me, and we have compar’d Notes on your new Piece. We find nothing in the Scheme of Education, however excellent, but what is, in our Opinion, very practicable. The great Difficulty will be, to find the Aratus , and other suitable Persons, in New York, to carry it into Execution; but such may be had, if proper...
676From Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson, 9 May 1753 (Franklin Papers)
Copy: New York Public Library; also copies: Public Record Office, American Philosophical Society, and (part only) British Museum Although this is one of Franklin’s most important letters, there has been difficulty about both its date and its recipient. Moreover, it has never been printed accurately, nor can it be here, for no Franklin autograph has been found. The two fullest surviving...
677From Benjamin Franklin to William Strahan, 9 May 1753 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : Boston Public Library; also duplicate: New York Public Library I have your Favour of Jany. 30 and thank you for the Civility shown on my Recommendation to Mr. Harris. What you mention concerning the Books, was not at all amiss. Neither the 2d Vol. of Bower’s History of the Popes, nor Delaresse’s Art of Painting, nor Crito, are to be found in Mr. Hall’s Trunks. I have settled a Nephew of...
678To Benjamin Franklin from John Perkins, 14 May 1753 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Benjamin Franklin, Experiments and Observations on Electricity (London, 1769), pp. 236–7. I received your letter of April last, and thank you for it. Several things in it make me at a loss which side the truth lies on, and determine me to wait for farther evidence. As to shooting stars, as they are called, I know very little, and hardly know what to say. I imagine them to be passes...
679To Benjamin Franklin from James Mitchell, 19 May 1753 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : American Philosophical Society I Received yours of April 28. Your order on me in favour of Mrs. Benger for one Hundred Dollars, shall be punctualy paid when presented, as was your order on me for fifty Pounds. I shall by Next post send an Account of the Stoves paid and those on hand. I am Your Obedient Servant The Inclosed is for my Son in Law, Expected your way from Fiall, if you heare...
680Pennsylvania Assembly: Message to the Governor on Paper Currency, 25 May 1753 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1752–1753 (Philadelphia, 1753), p. 21. On consideration of the report of the committee on paper currency, trade, and population, submitted August 19, 1752 (see above, p. 344), the Assembly on January 18, 1753, sitting as a committee of the whole, unanimously approved three resolutions: “That it is the Opinion of this Committee...
681Pennsylvania Assembly Committee of Grievances: Report, 25 May 1753 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1752–1753 (Philadelphia, 1753), pp. 22–3. On January 23, 1753, four petitions from “a considerable Number of the Inhabitants” of Northampton County and a certificate from two of the assessors were presented to the Pennsylvania Assembly. They complained that Sheriff William Craig, holding several county offices, had too much...
682Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, 31 May 1753 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1752–1753 (Philadelphia, 1753), p. 25. On May 22, 1753, Governor Hamilton informed the Assembly that a large army of French and Indians had passed Oswego on its way to the Ohio country. England’s Indian allies there would be forced to withdraw and English traders would be captured and their goods destroyed. This report, which...
683From Benjamin Franklin to Elizabeth Gardner, 4 June 1753 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : Pennsylvania Hospital Please to receive the Bearer into the Hospital, and entertain him there till the Physicians have considered his Case. Your Friend and Servant Elizabeth Gardner was matron of the Pennsylvania Hospital, 1751–60. Thomas G. Morton and Frank Woodbury, The History of the Pennsylvania Hospital (Phila., 1895), p. 544. Not identified.
684From Benjamin Franklin to William Strahan, 4 June 1753 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : New York Public Library The above is a Copy of mine per Reeves. This is only to request you would send me here, the Quarto Abridgement of the Philosophical Transactions, except the first five Volumes which I have. Send me also Fielding’s Proposals for employing the Poor. In haste, I am Yours ut supra All well. Mr. Hall out of town. The 5 Vols of Transactions I have, are abridg’d by...
685From Benjamin Franklin to Joseph Huey, 6 June 1753 (Franklin Papers)
Draft: American Philosophical Society; copy: Yale University Library; transcript: Historical Society of Pennsylvania Few of Franklin’s letters were more often copied in the eighteenth century than this, or more frequently printed in the nineteenth. Probably most of the copyists approved the author’s views; a few certainly reprobated them: the editor of the Port Folio , for example, printing...
686[June 1753] (Adams Papers)
At Colledge. A Clowdy, Dull morning, and so continued till about 5 a Clock, when it began to rain m o derately But continued not long, But remained Clowdy all night in which night I watched with Powers. The first day of the first quarter of the 1753–1754 academic year ( MH-Ar : Steward’s Records, Quarterbill Books, 1720–1756). For a discussion of the impulses and influences leading JA to start...
687Harvard Colledge June 8th. 1753. (Adams Papers)
At Colledge. A Clowdy, Dull morning, and so continued till about 5 a Clock, when it began to rain m o derately But continued not long, But remained Clowdy all night in which night I watched with Powers. The first day of the first quarter of the 1753–1754 academic year ( MH-Ar : Steward’s Records, Quarterbill Books, 1720–1756). For a discussion of the impulses and influences leading JA to start...
6889 Saturday. (Adams Papers)
At Colledge, the weather still remaining Clowdy all Day, till 6 o’Clock, when the Clowds were Dissipated, and the sun brake forth in all his glory.
68910 Sunday. (Adams Papers)
At Colledge a clear morning. Heard Mr. Appleton expound those words in 1. Cor. 12 Chapt. 7 first verses, and in the afternoon heard him preach from those words in 26 of Mathew 41 verse, watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation. Harvard students attended services on Sundays in the First Church of Cambridge ( Morison, Three Centuries of Harvard Samuel Eliot Morison, Three Centuries of...
690Monday [11 June]. (Adams Papers)
At Colledge, a fair morning, and pretty warm. About 2 o’Clock there appeared some symptoms of an approaching shower, attended with some thunder, and lightning.