Volume II Part 18 (1/2)
”B FRANKLIN
”We all join in respects to Mrs shi+pley”
”_Mrs Hewson, London_
”Philadelphia, May 6, 1786
”MY DEAR FRIEND,
”A long winter has passed, and I have not had the pleasure of a line fro land I suppose you have been in Yorkshi+re, out of the way and knowledge of opportunities, for I will not think you have forgotten me
To e packet from Mr Willia three letters from you, one of December 12, 1775 This packet had been received by Mr Bache afterall my absence, and has just now broke out upon ealed in Northern air_ Therein I find all the pleasing little faan to spell, overcoth of memory all the difficulty occasioned by the common wretched alphabet, while you were convinced of the utility of our new one How To the old names of the letters, called U _bell_ and P _bottle_ How Eliza began to grow jolly, that is, fat and handso Aunt Rooke, whoether with all the _then_ news of Lady Blunt's having produced at length a boy; of Dolly's being well, and of poor good Catharine's decease Of your affairs with Muir and Atkinson, and of their contract for feeding the fish in the Channel Of the Vinys, and their jaunt to Caes Of Dolly's journey to Wales with Mr Scot Of the Wilkeses, the Pearces, Elphinston, &c, &c
Concluding with a kind proreed to make peace, I should have you with me in America
That peace has been some time made, but, alas! the promise is not yet fulfilled And why is it not fulfilled?
”I have found ood circumstances, and well respected by their fellow-citizens The companions of reeable society arandchildren I have public business enough to preserve me from _ennui_, and private aarden Considering our well-furnished plentifulrassplats and gravel-walks, with trees and flowering shrubs
”Tericulture, which he pursues ardently, being in possession of a fine far his studies at college, and continues to behave as well as when you knew hiood son His younger brothers and sisters are also all proood teood constitutions As to eneral health and spirits rather better than when you saw me, and the particular malady I then coreat esteem, I am ever, my dear friend, yours most affectionately,
”B FRANKLIN”
”_To M Veillard_
”Philadelphia, April 15, 1787
”MY DEAR FRIEND,
”I am quite of your opinion, that our independence is not quite coed our public debt This state is not behindhand in its proportion, and those who are in arrear are actually ee their respective balances; but they are not all equally diligent in the business, nor equally successful; the whole will, however, be paid, I alish have not yet delivered up the posts on our frontier agreeable to treaty; the pretence is, that our merchants here have not paid their debts I was a little provoked when I first heard this, and I wrote some remarks upon it, which I send you: they have been written near a year, but I have not yet published thee any of our people who lect of that duty The paper is therefore only for your amusement, and that of our excellent friend the Duke de la Rochefoucauld
”As towhich you so kindly inquire, I have never had the least doubt of its being the stone, and I am sensible that it has increased; but, on the whole, it does not give , ill drink of the cup of life to the very bottos; and when I reflect on the number of terrible maladies hu to ht in conjecturing that I wrote the re executive justice_' I have no copy of these re was introduced, that it is better a thousand guilty persons should escape than one innocent suffer
Your criticisine youit I always thought with you, that the prejudice in Europe, which supposes a family dishonoured by the punish, on the contrary, ed out of a family does it more honour than ten that live in it
B FRANKLIN”
”_Mr Jordain_
”Philadelphia, May 18, 1787
”DEAR SIR,