To Benjamin Franklin from Jane Mecom, [23 October 1767]
From Jane Mecom
MS not found; extract reprinted from Jared Sparks, ed., The Works of Benjamin Franklin, VII (Boston, 1838), 515 n.
[October 23, 17672]
Sorrows roll upon me like the waves of the sea. I am hardly allowed time to fetch my breath. I am broken with breach upon breach, and I have now, in the first flow of my grief,3 been almost ready to say, “What have I more?” But God forbid, that I should indulge that thought, though I have lost another child. God is sovereign, and I submit.
2. So dated by Van Doren, Franklin-Mecom, p. 98, on the basis of BF’s later reference to a letter of that date, below, p. 344.
3. Jane was lamenting the death of her daughter, Mary (Polly) Mecom (C.17.11), who had died on Sept. 19, 1767, at the home of a relative on Nantucket; see above, p. 279 n.