Benjamin Franklin
(1706 - 1790)

To John Bartram

Dear Friend, London July 9, 1769

It is with great Pleasure I understand by your Favour of April 10. that you continue to enjoy so good a Share of Health. I hope it will long continue. And altho' it may not now be suitable for you to make such wide Excursions as heretofore, you may yet be very useful to your Country and to Mankind, if you sit down quietly at home, digest the Knowledge you have acquired, compile and publish the many Observations you have made, and point out the Advantages that may be drawn from the whole, in publick Undertakings or particular private Practice. It is true many People are fond of Accounts of old Buildings, Monuments, &c. but there is a Number who would be much better pleas'd with such Accounts as you could afford them: And for one I confess that if I could find in any Italian Travels a Receipt for making Parmesan Cheese, it would give me more Satisfaction than a Transcript of any Inscription from any old Stone whatever.

I suppose Mr. Michael Collinson, or Dr. Fothergill have written to you what may be necessary for your Information relating to your Affairs here. I imagine there is no doubt but the King's Bounty to you will be continued; and that it will be proper for you to continue sending now and then a few such curious Seeds as you can procure to keep up your Claim. And now I mention Seeds, I wish you would send me a few of such as are least common, to the Value of a Guinea, which Mr. Foxcroft will pay you for me. They are for a particular Friend who is very curious. If in any thing I can serve you here, command freely Your affectionate Friend

P.S. Pray let me know whether you have had sent you any of the Seeds of the Rhubarb describ'd in the enclos'd Prints. It is said to be of the true kind. If you have it not, I can procure some Seeds for you.

To George Whitefield

I am under continued apprehensions that we may have bad news from America. The sending soldiers to Boston always appeared to me a dangerous step; they could do no good, they might occasion mischief. When I consider the warm resentment of a people who think themselves injured and oppressed, and the common insolence of the soldiery, who are taught to consider that people as in rebellion, I cannot but fear the consequences of bringing them together. It seems like setting up a smith's forge in a magazine of gunpowder. I see with you that our affairs are not well managed by our rulers here below; I wish I could believe with you, that they are well attended to by those above: I rather suspect, from certain circumstances, that though the general government of the universe is well administered, our particular little affairs are perhaps below notice, and left to take the chance of human prudence or imprudence, as either may happen to be uppermost. It is, however, an uncomfortable thought, and I leave it.

before September 2, 1769

To Mary Stevenson

Saturday Evening, Sept 2. 1769 Just come home from a Venison Feast, where I have drank more than a Philosopher ought, I find my dear Polly's chearful chatty Letter that exhilarates me more than all the Wine.

Your good Mother says there is no Occasion for any Intercession of mine in your behalf. She is sensible that she is more in fault than her Daughter. She received an affectionate tender Letter from you, and she has not answered it, tho' she intended to do it; but her Head, not her Heart, has been bad, and unfitted her for Writing. She owns that she is not so good a Subject as you are, and that she is more unwilling to pay Tribute to Cesar, and has less Objection to Smuggling; but 'tis not, she says, mere Selfishness or Avarice; 'tis rather an honest Resentment at the Waste of those Taxes in Pensions, Salaries, Perquisites, Contracts and other Emoluments for the Benefit of People she does not love, and who do not deserve such Advantages, because -- I suppose because they are not of her Party. Present my Respects to your good Landlord and his Family: I honour them for their consciencious Aversion to illicit Trading. There are those in the World who would not wrong a Neighbour, but make no Scruple of cheating the King. The Reverse however does not hold; for whoever scruples cheating the King will certainly not wrong his Neighbour. You ought not to wish yourself an Enthusiast: They have indeed their imaginary Satisfactions and Pleasures; but those are often ballanc'd by imaginary Pains and Mortifications. You can continue to be a good Girl, and thereby lay a solid Foundation for expected future Happiness, without the Enthusiasm that may perhaps be necessary to some others. As those Beings who have a good sensible Instinct, have no need of Reason; so those who have Reason to regulate their Actions, have no Occasion for Enthusiasm. However there are certain Circumstances in Life sometimes, wherein 'tis perhaps best not to hearken to Reason. For instance; Possibly, if the Truth were known, I have Reason to be jealous of this same insinuating handsome young Physician: But as it flatters more my Vanity, and therefore gives me more Pleasure to suppose you were in Spirits on Account of my safe Return, I shall turn a deaf Ear to Reason in this Case, as I have done with Success in twenty others. But I am sure you will always give me Reason enough to continue ever Your affectionate Friend

Our Love to Mrs. Tickell. We all long for your Return: Your Dolly was well last Tuesday, the Girls were there on a Visit to her: I mean at Bromley. Adieu.

No Time now to give you any Account of my French Journey.

To Timothy Folger

Loving Kinsman, London, Sept. 29. 1769

Since my Return from abroad, where I spent part of the Summer, I have received your Favours of June 10 and July 26. The Treasury Board is still under Adjournment, the Lords and Secretaries chiefly in the Country; but as soon as they meet again, you may depend on my making the Application you desire.

I shall enquire concerning the Affair of your two Townships settled under Massachusetts Grants, and let you know my Sentiments as soon as I can get proper Information. I should imagine that whatever may be determin'd here of the Massachusetts Rights to the Jurisdiction, the private Property of Settlers must remain secure. In general I have no great Opinion of Applications to be made here in such Cases. It is so much the Practice to draw Matters into Length, put the Parties to immense Charge, and tire them out with Delays, that I would never come from America hither with any Affair I could possibly settle there.

Mrs. Stevenson sends her Love, and thanks you for remembring her. She is vex'd to hear that the Box of Spermaceti Candles is seiz'd; and says, if ever she sees you again, she will put you in a way of making Reprisals. You know she is a Smuggler upon Principle; and she does not consider how averse you are to every thing of the kind. I thank you for your kind Intention. Your Son grows a fine Youth; he is so obliging as to be with us a little when he has Holidays; and Temple is not the only one of the Family that is fond of his Company.

It gives me great Pleasure to hear that our People are steady in their Resolutions of Non Importation, and in the Promoting of Industry among themselves. They will soon be sensible of the Benefit of such Conduct, tho' the Acts should never be repeal'd to their full Satisfaction. For their Earth and their Sea, the true Sources of Wealth and Plenty, will go on producing; and if they receive the annual Increase, and do not waste it as heretofore in the Gewgaws of this Country, but employ their spare time in manufacturing Necessaries for themselves, they must soon be out of debt, they must soon be easy and comfortable in their circumstances, and even wealthy. I have been told, that in some of our County Courts heretofore, there were every quarter several hundred actions of debt, in which the people were sued by Shopkeepers for money due for British goods (as they are called, but in fact evils). What a loss of time this must occasion to the people, besides the expense. And how can Freeman bear the thought of subjecting themselves to the hazard of being deprived of their personal liberty at the caprice of every petty trader, for the paltry vanity of tricking out himself and family in the flimsy manufactures of Britain, when they might by their own industry and ingenuity, appear in good substantial honourable homespun! Could our folks but see what numbers of Merchants, and even Shopkeepers here, make great estates by American folly; how many shops of A, B, C and Co. with wares for exportation to the Colonies, maintain, each shop three or four partners and their families, every one with his country-house and equipage, where they live like Princes on the sweat of our brows; pretending indeed, sometimes, to wish well to our Privileges, but on the present important occasion few of them affording us any assistance: I am persuaded that indignation would supply our want of prudence, we should disdain the thraldom we have so long been held in by this mischievous commerce, reject it for ever, and seek our resources where God and Nature have placed them WITHIN OUR SELVES.

Your Merchants, on the other hand, have shown a noble disinterestedness and love to their country, unexampled among Traders in any other age or nation, and which does them infinite honour all over Europe. The corrupted part indeed of this people here can scarce believe such virtue possible. But perseverance will convince them, that there is still in the world such a thing as public spirit. I hope that, if the oppressive Acts are not repealed this winter, your Stocks, that us'd to be employed in the British Trade, will be turned to the employment of Manufactures among yourselves: For notwithstanding the former general opinion that manufactures were impracticable in America, on account of the dearness of labour, experience shows, in the success of the manufactures of paper and stockings in Pennsylvania, and of womens shoes at Lynn in your province, that labour is only dear from the want of CONSTANT employment; (he who is often out of work requiring necessarily as much for the time he does work, as will maintain him when he does not work:) and that where we do not interrupt that employment by importations, the cheapness of our provisions gives us such advantage over the Manufacturers in Britain, that (especially in bulky goods, whose freight would be considerable) we may always UNDERWORK THEM.

To William Strahan

Dear Sir, Craven Street, Nov. 29. 69

Being just return'd to Town from a little Excursion I find yours of the 22d, containing a Number of Queries that would require a Pamphlet to answer them fully. You however desire only brief Answers, which I shall endeavour to give you. Previous to your Queries, You tell me, that "you apprehend his Majesty's Servants have now in Contemplation; 1st. to releive the Colonists from the Taxes complained of: and 2dly to preserve the Honour, the Dignity, and the Supremacy of the British Legislature over all his Majesty's Dominions." I hope your Information is good, and that what you suppose to be in Contemplation will be carried into Execution, by repealing all the Laws that have been made for raising a Revenue in America by Authority of Parliament, without the consent of the People there. The Honour and Dignity of the British Legislature will not be hurt by such an Act of Justice and Wisdom: The wisest Councils are liable to be misled, especially in Matters remote from their Inspection. It is the persisting in an Error, not the Correcting it that lessens the Honour of any Man or body of Men. The Supremacy of that Legislature, I believe will be best preserv'd by making a very sparing use of it, never but for the Evident Good of the Colonies themselves, or of the whole British Empire; never for the Partial Advantage of Britain to their Prejudice; by such Prudent Conduct I imagine that Supremacy may be gradually strengthened and in time fully Established; but otherwise I apprehend it will be disputed, and lost in the Dispute. At present the Colonies consent and Submit to it for the regulation of General Commerce: But a Submission to Acts of Parliament was no part of their original Constitution. Our former Kings Governed their Colonies, as they Governed their Dominions in France, without the Participation of British Parliaments. The Parliament of England never presum'd to interfere with that prerogative till the Time of the Great Rebellion, when they usurp'd the Government of all the King's other Dominions, Ireland, Scotland &c. The Colonies that held for the King, they conquered by Force of Arms, and Governed afterward as Conquered Countries. But New England having not oppos'd the Parliament, was considered and treated as a Sister Kingdom in Amity with England; as appears by the Journals, Mar. 10. 1642.

Your first Question is, 1. "Will not a Repeal of all the Duties (that on Tea excepted, which was before paid here on Exportation, and of Course no new Imposition) fully satisfy the Colonists?"

I think not.

"2 Your Reasons for that Opinion?"

Because it is not the Sum paid in that Duty on Tea that is Complain'd of as a Burthen, but the Principle of the Act express'd in the Preamble, viz. that those Duties were laid for the Better Support of Government and the Administration of Justice in the Colonies. This the Colonists think unnecessary, unjust, and dangerous to their Most Important Rights. Unnecessary, because in all the Colonies (two or three new ones excepted) Government and the Administration of Justice were and always had been well supported without any Charge to Britain; Unjust as it made such Colonies liable to pay such Charge for other Colonies, in which they had no Concern or Interest; dangerous, as such a Mode of raising Money for these Purposes, tended to render their Assemblies useless: For if a Revenue could be rais'd in the Colonies for all the purposes of Government, by Act of Parliament, without Grants from the People there, Governors, who do not generally love Assemblies, would never call them, they would be laid aside; and when nothing Should depend upon the People's good will to Government, their Rights would be trampled on, they would be treated with Contempt. Another Reason why I think they would not be satisfy'd with such a partial repeal, is, that their Agreements not to import till the Repeal takes place, include the whole, which shows that they object to the whole; and those Agreements will continue binding on them if the whole is not repealed.

"3. Do you think the only effectual Way of composing the present Differences, is, to put the Americans precisely in the Situation they were in before the passing of the late Stamp Act?"

I think so.

"4. Your Reasons for that Opinion?"

Other Methods have been tryed. They have been rebuked in angry Letters. Their Petitions have been refused or rejected by Parliament. They have been threatened with the Punishments of Treason by Resolves of both Houses. Their Assemblies have been dissolv'd, and Troops have been sent among them; but all these Ways have only exasperated their Minds and widen'd the Breach; their Agreements to use no more British Manufactures have been Strengthen'd, and these Measures instead of composing Differences and promoting a good Correspondence, have almost annihilated your Commerce with those Countries, and greatly endanger'd the National Peace and general Welfare.

"5. If this last Method is deemed by the Legislature and his Majisty's Ministers to be repugnant to their Duty as Guardians of the just Rights of the Crown, and of their Fellow Subjects, can you suggest any other Way of terminating these Disputes, consistent with the Ideas of Justice and propriety conceived by the Kings Subjects on both Sides the Atlantick?"

A. I do not see how that method can be deemed repugnant to the Rights of the Crown. If the Americans are put into their former Situation, it must be by an Act of Parliament, in the Passing of which by the King the Rights of the Crown are exercised not infringed. It is indifferent to the Crown whether the Aids received from America are Granted by Parliament here, or by the Assemblies there, provided the Quantum be the same; and it is my Opinion more will generally be Granted there Voluntarily than can ever be exacted and collected from thence by Authority of parliament. As to the rights of Fellow Subjects (I suppose you mean the People of Britain) I cannot conceive how they will be infringed by that method. They will still enjoy the Right of Granting their own money; and may still, if it pleases them, keep up their Claim to the Right of granting ours; a Right they can never exercise properly, for want of a sufficient Knowledge of us, our Circumstances and Abilities (to say nothing of the little likelihood there is that we should ever submit to it) therefore a Right that can be of no good use to them. And we shall continue to enjoy, in fact, the Right of granting our own Money; with the Opinion now universally prevailing among us that we are free Subjects of the King, and that Fellow Subjects of one Part of his Dominions are not Sovereign over Fellow Subjects in any other Part. If the Subjects on the different Sides of the Atlantic, have different and opposite Ideas of Justice or Propriety, no one Method can possibly be consistent with both. The best will be to let each enjoy their own Opinions, without disturbing them when they do not interfere with the common Good.

"6. And if this Method were actually followed do you not think it would encourage the Violent and Factious Part of the Colonists to aim at still farther Concessions from the Mother Country?"

A. I do not think it would. There may be a few among them that deserve the Name of factious and Violent, as there are in all Countries, but these would have little influence if the great Majority of Sober reasonable People were satisfy'd. If any Colony should happen to think that some of your regulations of Trade are inconvenient to the general Interest of the Empire, or prejudicial to them without being beneficial to you, they will state these Matters to the Parliament in Petitions as heretofore, but will, I believe, take no violent steps to obtain, what they may hope for in time from the Wisdom of Government here. I know of nothing else they can have in View. The Notion that prevails here of their being desirous of setting up a Kingdom or Common Wealth of their own, is to my certain Knowledge entirely groundless. I therefore think that on a total Repeal of all Duties laid expressly for the purpose of raising a Revenue on the People of America, without their Consent, the present Uneasiness would subside; the Agreements not to import would be dissolved, and the Commerce flourish as heretofore. And I am confirm'd in this Sentiment by all the Letters I have received from America, and by the Opinion of all the Sensible People who have lately come from thence, Crown Officers excepted. I know indeed that the people of Boston are grievously offended by the Quartering of Troops among them, as they think, contrary to Law; and are very angry with the Board of Commissioners to have calumniated them to Government; but as I suppose withdrawing of those Troops may be a Consequence of Reconciliating Measures taking Place; and that the Commission also will either be dissolv'd if found useless, or fill'd with more temporate and prudent Men if still deemed useful and necessary, I do not imagine these Particulars will prevent a return of the Harmony so much to be wished.

"7. If they are relieved in Part only, what do you, as a reasonable and dispassionate Man, and an equal Friend to both sides, imagine will be the probable Consequence?"

A. I imagine that repealing the offensive Duties in part will answer no End to this Country; the Commerce will remain obstructed, and the Americans go on with their Schemes of Frugality, Industry and Manufactures, to their own great Advantage. How much that may tend to the prejudice of Britain I cannot say; perhaps not so much as some apprehend, since she may in time find New Markets. But I think (if the Union of the two Countries continues to subsist) it will not hurt the general interest; for whatever Wealth Britain loses by the Failure of its Trade with the Colonies, America will gain; and the Crown will receive equal Aids from its Subjects upon the whole, if not greater.

And now I have answered your Questions as to what may be in my Opinion the Consequences of this or that supposed Measure, I will go a little farther, and tell you what I fear is more likely to come to pass in Reality.

I apprehend, that the Ministry, at least the American part of it, being fully persuaded of the Right of Parliament, think it ought to be enforc'd whatever may be the Consequences; and at the same time do not believe there is even now any Abatement of the Trade between the two Countries on account of these Disputes; or that if there is, it is small and cannot long Continue; they are assured by the Crown officers in America that Manufactures are impossible there; that the Discontented are few, and Persons of little Consequence; that almost all the People of Property and Importance are satisfyd, and disposed to submit quietly to the Taxing-Power of Parliament; and that if the Revenue Acts are continued, those Duties only that are called anti-commercial being repealed, and others perhaps laid in their stead, that Power will ere long be patiently submitted to, and the Agreements not to import be broken when they are found to produce no Change of Measures here. From these and similar Misinformations, which seem to be credited, I think it likely that no thorough redress of Grievances will be afforded to America this Session. This may inflame Matters still more in that Country; farther rash Measures there may create more Resentment here, that may Produce not merely ill-advis'd and useless Dissolutions of their Assemblies, as last Year; but Attempts to Dissolve their Constitutions; more Troops may be sent over, which will create more Uneasiness; to justify the Measures of Government your Ministerial Writers will revile the Americans in your Newspapers, as they have already began to do, treating them as Miscreants, Rogues, Dastards, Rebels, &c. which will tend farther to alienate the Minds of the People here from them, and diminish their Affections to this Country. Possibly too, some of their warm patriots may be distracted enough to expose themselves by some mad Action, to be sent for Hither, and Government here be indiscreet enough to Hang them on the Act of H. 8. Mutual Provocations will thus go on to complete the Separation; and instead of that cordial Affection that once and so long existed, and that Harmony so suitable to the Circumstances, and so Necessary to the Happiness, Strength Safety and Welfare of both Countries; an implacable Malice and Mutual Hatred, (such as we now see subsisting between the Spaniards and Portuguese, the Genoese and Corsicans, from the same Original Misconduct in the Superior Government) will take place; the Sameness of Nation, the Similarity of Religion, Manners and Language not in the least Preventing in our Case, more than it did in theirs. I hope however that this may all prove false Prophecy: And that you and I may live to see as sincere and Perfect a friendship establish'd between our respective Countries as has so many years Subsisted between Mr. Strahan and his truly affectionate Friend