From Benjamin Franklin to [Thomas Pownall], [11–12 February? 1765]
To [Thomas Pownall]2
Draft: American Philosophical Society
[February 11–12? 1765]3
Sir
I send you enclos’d the Paper you desire. You will judge of the Propriety of Publishing it as it is, or what Alterations should be made in it. If there were any Liklihood of its being adopted, I could rather wish it were presented to the Ministry, provided their present Scheme of a Stamp Act might be laid aside.
2. Verner W. Crane, Benjamin Franklin’s Letters to the Press 1758–1775 (Chapel Hill, [1950]), p. 25, has identified the recipient of this letter beyond any reasonable doubt as the former governor of Mass. (above, V, 339 n), to whom BF was sending the document that directly follows this one. Crane’s discussion of these two documents is most useful. The second edition of Pownall’s The Administration of the Colonies was in preparation at this time and he seems to have considered including BF’s scheme in it. Instead, as BF preferred, they presented it to George Grenville, as the second document below establishes.
3. The date of this note and of the paper it accompanied is not entirely certain; it probably preceded very closely the submission of the paper to Grenville on Feb. 12, 1765.