come to hand. I forwarded the packet enclosed in that of July 23d, as directed, and shall readily take care of any other letters from you, that pass through my hands. The post, between this place and Winchester, was established for the accommodation of the army chiefly, by a vote of our Assembly. They are not willing to continue the charge, and it must, I believe, be dropped, unless your Assembly and that of Maryland will contribute to support it, which, perhaps, is scarce to be expected. * But I am sorry it should be laid down, as I shall myself be a loser in the affair of newspapers.* the letters per post by no means defray the expense. If you can prevail with your Assembly to pay the rider from Winchester to Carlisle, I will endeavour to persuade ours to continue paying the rider from Carlisle hither. My agreement with the house was, to carry all public despatches gratis, to keep account of postage received for private letters, and charge the expense of riders and offices; and they were to pay the balance. I am, Sir, with great esteem and respect, &c. B. FRANKLIN. P. S. We have just received news, that the Delaware Indians, with whom we treated lately at Easton, have burnt the goods they received as presents, and resolved to continue the war.t were at Winchester. Franklin, in his capacity of deputy postmaster, or rather the postmaster-general for the colonies, had the year previous, during Braddock's march, arranged a post between Philadelphia and Winchester, in consequence of a vote of the Pennsylvania Assembly. At this time, Franklin printed and published a newspaper in Philadelphia. Though Franklin was actively engaged in these important affairs, which had an immediate claim upon his exertions, he took a not less zealous or liberal part in promoting objects of general utility; as is TO MRS. DEBORAH FRANKLIN. Conference with the Indians at Easton. MY DEAR CHILD, Easton, 13 November, 1756. I wrote to you a few days since by a special messenger, and enclosed letters for all our wives and sweethearts; expecting to hear from you by his return, and to have the northern newspapers and English letters per the packet; but he is just now returned without a scrap for poor us. So I had a good mind not to write to you by this opportunity; but I never can be ill natured enough even when there is the most occasion. The messenger says he left the letters at your house, and saw you afterwards at Mr. Duché's, and told you when he would go, and that he lodged at Honey's, next door to you, and yet you did not write; so let Goody Smith give one more just judgment, and say what should be done to you. I think I won't tell you that we are well, nor that we expect to return about the middle of the week, nor will I send you a word of news; that 's poz. manifest by the following extract from a letter written to him by Mr. William Shipley, dated London, September 1st, 1756. Mr. Shipley was secretary to the society, in whose behalf he wrote. "Sir; I am ordered to acquaint you that the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce have unanimously elected you a corresponding member; and it gives the Society a singular pleasure to place upon their list a gentleman, whose public spirit and uncommon abilities are so universally known, and so deservedly esteemed. They are glad to find their plan approved by you, and will always give great attention to what you shall judge most proper for their encour agement in America, which they hope from time to time you will please to let them know. They return you thanks for your generous present of twenty guineas, which their treasurer has received by the hands of Mr. Collinson. They earnestly desire your correspondence, information, and advice." My duty to mother, love to the children, and to Miss Betsey and Gracy, &c. &c. husband, I am your loving B. FRANKLIN. P. S. I have scratched out the loving words, being writ in haste by mistake, when I forgot I was angry.* * * When the above letter was written, the author was at Easton in Pennsylvania, attending a conference with the Indians. The successes of the French on the frontiers, and the disasters which followed Braddock's defeat, had excited the Indians to hostilities; and murders and other outrages had been committed by them even in the heart of the province. To counteract the influence of the French, and bring the Indians to a better temper, it was deemed expedient to hold an amicable conference with some of their chiefs. Governor Denny was present in person; and also William Logan and Richard Peters, on the part of the Council; and Benjamin Franklin, Joseph Fox, William Masters, and John Hughes, as delegates from the Assembly. The conference was opened at Easton, on the 8th of November. Teedyuscung, a king of the Delawares, residing at Wyoming, was the principal speaker for the Indians. He explained the reasons of the recent hostilities, but said, he was now at peace and wished to remain so. He promised to return all the prisoners, and demanded that the Indians, who had been taken, should likewise be sent back to him. He also complained of wrongs, which he had suffered. "I do not want," said he, "to compel any of the Indians to return or to stay against their will. If they are inclined to stay and live among the English, I am quite willing they should go back again; but I want that they should come and see me, that thereby I may convince their relations, and the other nations afar off, that they are not servants, but free people." "have settled or This very ground "The kings of England and France," he added, wrought this land, so as to coop us up as if in a pen. that is under me" (striking it with his foot) "was my land and inheritance, and is taken from me by fraud; when I say this ground, I mean all the land lying between Tohiccon Creek and Wyoming on the River Susquehanna. The Proprietaries, who have purchased their lands from us cheap, have sold them too dear to poor people, and the Indians have suffered for it. It would have been more prudent for the Proprietaries to sell the lands cheaper, and to have given it in charge to the people, who bought from them, to use the Indians with kindness on that account." The governor asked him what he meant by fraud. Teedyuscung replied; "When one man had formerly liberty to purchase lands, and he took the deeds from the Indians for it, and then died; after his death the children forge the deed for the true one, with TO EDWARD AND JANE MECOM. Philadelphia, 30 December, 1756. DEAR BROTHER AND SISTER, You will receive this by the hand of your son Benjamin, on whose safe return from the West Indies I sincerely congratulate you. He has settled accounts with me, and paid the balance honorably. He has also cleared the old printing-house to himself, and sent it to Boston, where he purposes to set up his business, together with bookselling, which, considering his industry and frugality, I make no doubt will answer. He has good the same Indian names to it, and thereby take lands from the Indians which they never sold; this is fraud. Also when one king has land beyond the river, and another king has land on this side, both bounded by rivers, mountains, and springs, which cannot be moved, and the Proprietaries, greedy to purchase lands, buy of one king what belongs to another; this is likewise fraud." "All the land extending from Tohiccon Creek, over the great mountain to Wyoming, has been taken from me by fraud; for, when I had agreed to sell the land to the old Proprietary by the course of the river, the young Proprietaries came, and got it run by a straight course by the compass, and by that means took in double the quantity intended to be sold." Though these charges were not allowed to be correct, yet the commissioners thought it advisable to put an end to the complaints of the Indians by satisfying their claims, and they offered to Teedyuscung a suitable compensation. He declined accepting it, on the ground that other tribes besides his own were concerned, and must be consulted, and concluded by saying, that in the spring he would bring them together for another treaty. The manuscript minutes of this singular conference have been preserved in the archives of the American Philosophical Society. The commissioners, who attended the conference on the part of the Assembly, were not satisfied with the manner in which the minutes were reported to that body by the governor, and they signed jointly an explanatory paper, which was probably drawn up by Franklin, and which is printed in the "Votes and Proceedings of the Assembly," under the date of January 29th, 1757. credit and some money in England, and I have helped him by lending him a little more; so that he may expect a cargo of books, and a quantity of new let ter, in the spring; and I shall from time to time furnish him with paper. We all join in love to you and yours. I am your loving brother, B. FRANKLIN. * TO ROBERT CHARLES.* Bills of the Sends Papers relating to Pennsylvania. SIR, Philadelphia, 1 February, 1757. By this ship you will receive a box containing sundry copies of our last years' Votes, to which are added, as you advised, the accounts of the expenditure of the fifty-five thousand pounds, and the subsequent thirty thousand. Also the papers relating to the employing of foreign officers. There is likewise in the box an authenticated copy of our late bill for granting one hundred thousand to the King's use, and of the vote appointing yourself and Mr. Partridge agents, under the great seal, with all the late messages. You will see in the Votes a copy of the Proprietary Instructions, in which a money bill is made for us by the Proprietary, sitting in his closet at one thousand leagues' distance. The governor laid before us an estimate of the necessary expense for defending the province one year, amounting to one hundred and five thousand pounds. We knew our inability to bear the raising • Many years agent in England for the Assembly of Pennsylvania. |