網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

I was glad to hear that the Hospital is still supported. I write to the managers by this ship. In my journeys through England and Scotland I have visited several of the same kind, which I think were all in a good way. I send you by this ship sundry of their accounts and rules, which were given me. Possibly you may find a useful hint or two in some of them. I believe we shall be able to make a small collection here; but I cannot promise it will be very considerable.

You tell me you sometimes visit the ancient Junto. I wish you would do it oftener. I know they all love and respect you, and regret your absenting yourself so much. People are apt to grow strange, and not understand one another so well, when they meet but seldom. Since we have held that Club, till we are grown gray together, let us hold it out to the end. For my own part, I find I love company, chat, a laugh, a glass, and even a song, as well as ever; and at the same time relish better than I used to do the grave observations and wise sentences of old men's conversation; so that I am sure the Junto will be still as agreeable to me as it ever has been. I therefore hope it will not be discontinued, as long as we are able to crawl together.*

[ocr errors]

I thank you for the frequent kind visits you are so good as to make to my little family. I now hope in a little time to have the pleasure of seeing them, and thanking my friends in person. With the sincerest esteem and regard, I am, dear friend, yours affectionately, B. FRANKLIN.

One of Franklin's songs for the JUNTO has been printed above, (p. 92). Another, of a political complexion, has been found among his manuscripts, which was probably written about the time of the Stamp Act, or a little later. The allusion to France, in the last stanza but

TO JOSIAH QUINCY.

Edmund Quincy. - Affairs in England.

DEAR SIR,

London, 8 April, 1761.

I received your very obliging letter of December 25th, by the hand of your valuable son, who had before favored me now and then with a kind visit. I congratulate you on his account, as I am sure you

one, would seem to refer to that period. The author was then in England, and it is not known for what occasion the song was composed.

THE MOTHER COUNTRY; A SONG.

"We have an old mother that peevish is grown;

She snubs us like children that scarce walk alone;
She forgets we 're grown up and have sense of our own;
Which nobody can deny, deny,
Which nobody can deny.

"If we don't obey orders, whatever the case,

She frowns, and she chides, and she loses all pati-
Ence, and sometimes she hits us a slap in the face,
Which nobody can deny, &c.

"Her orders so odd are, we often suspect

That age has impaired her sound intellect;

But still an old mother should have due respect,

Which nobody can deny, &c.

"Let's bear with her humors as well as we can;
But why should we bear the abuse of her man?
When servants make mischief, they earn the rattan,
Which nobody should deny, &e.

"Know too, ye bad neighbours, who aim to divide
The sons from the mother, that still she 's our pride;
And if ye attack her we 're all of her side,

Which nobody can deny, &c.

“We 'll join in her lawsuits, to baffle all those,

Who, to get what she has, will be often her foes;

For we know it must all be our own, when she goes,

Which nobody can deny, deny

Which nobody can deny.'

must have a great deal of satisfaction in him. His ingenuous, manly, and generous behaviour, in a transaction here with the Society of Arts, gave me great pleasure, as it was much to his reputation.*

I am glad my weak endeavours for our common interest were acceptable to you and my American friends. I shall be very happy indeed, if any good arises from them. The people in power here do now seem convinced of the truth of the principles I have inculcated, and incline to act upon them; but how far they will be able to do so at a peace, is still

The gentleman here mentioned was Edmund Quincy, eldest son of Josiah Quincy. An extract from the Memoir of Thomas Hollis will explain the allusion to his transactions in England. "In a letter, dated July 2d, 1760, Dr. Mayhew had recommended to Mr. Hollis's good offices Mr. Edmund Quincy, a gentleman of liberal education, who had been in trade several years, and was come to London with a design to settle a mercantile correspondence there, his father being a gentleman of very considerable fortune in New England. Mr. Quincy had thoughts of engaging in the potash business, but was at some loss about the premium for encouraging importation; and the purpose of Dr. Mayhew's application to Mr. Hollis was, that, as Mr. Hollis was a member of the Society of Arts and Commerce, he would be both able and willing to resolve any doubts Mr. Quincy might be under respecting that matter."- Vol. I. p. 120.

By a letter from Mr. Quincy to Mr. Hollis, dated July 25th, 1766, it appears that he was successful in his scheme for manufacturing potash. "I have the pleasure to inform you," said he, "that the manufacture of potash is now so firmly established, it needs no further assistance from the Society, than their instruction how to assay it, so as to detect fraud, and maintain its credit, concerning which the Society will have a letter from our General Assembly. As far as my influence extends, I have encouraged the culture of silk in this part of the world; and I doubt not, in the course of four or five years, or as soon as mulberry trees can be brought to be of use, we shall be able to make some figure in that article, especially should the Society's bounty be continued on that commodity; for we find by experience, that the severity of our winters is no detriment to the eggs of the silk worm, wherever deposited."— Ibid. p. 337.

Edmund Quincy died at sea, March 31st, 1768, on his homeward. voyage from the West Indies, at the age of thirty-five.

[blocks in formation]

uncertain, especially as the war in Germany grows daily less favorable to us. My kinsman, Williams, was but ill informed in the account he gave you of my situation here. The Assembly voted me fifteen hundred pounds sterling, when I left Philadelphia, to defray the expense of my voyage, and negotiations in England, since which they have given nothing more, though I have been here near four years. They will, I make no doubt, on winding up the affair, do what is just; but they cannot afford to be extravagant, as that report would make them.

Pray make my best respects acceptable to your amiable family, and do me the justice to believe, that no one more sincerely wishes a continuance of your happiness, than, dear friend, yours most affectionately, B. FRANKLIN.*

TO EDWARD PENNINGTON.†

Concerning the Property of the Penn Family in Pennsylvania.

London, 9 May, 1761.

SIR,

I enclose you a letter from your kinsman, Mr. Springet Penn, with whom I had no acquaintance until

* Josiah Quincy, to whom the above letter was written, resided in Braintree, Massachusetts, and was the father of the distinguished patriot, Josiah Quincy, Junior, who will be mentioned hereafter. An early acquaintance and attachment had been formed between Mr. Quincy, the father, and Dr. Franklin, the particulars of which are described by the latter in his autobiography.

Mr. Pennington was an eminent merchant of Philadelphia. There was a family connexion between his ancestors and William Penn's first wife, whose name before her marriage was Springet.

lately, but have the pleasure to find him a very sensible, discreet young man, with excellent dispositions, which makes me the more regret, that the government as well as property of our province should pass out of that line. There has, by his account, been something very mysterious in the conduct of his uncle, Mr. Thomas Penn, towards him. He was his guardian; but, instead of endeavouring to educate him at home under his eye in a manner becoming the elder branch of their house, has from his infancy been endeavouring to get rid of him.

He first proposed sending him to the East Indies. When that was declined, he had a scheme of sending him to Russia; but, the young gentleman's mother absolutely refusing to let him go out of the kingdom, unless to Pennsylvania to be educated in the college there, he would by no means hear of his going thither, but bound him an apprentice to a county attorney in an obscure part of Sussex, which, after two years' stay, finding that he was taught nothing valuable, nor could see any company that might improve him, he left, and returned to his mother, with whom he has been ever since, much neglected by his uncle, except lately that he has been a little civil, to get him to join in a power of attorney to W. Peters and R. Hockley for the sale of some Philadelphia lots, of which he is told three undivided fourth parts belong to him. But he is not shown the right he has to them; nor has he any plan of their situation, by which he may be advised of their value; nor was he told, till lately, that he had any such right, which makes him suspect that he may have other rights that are concealed from him.

In some letters to his father's eldest brother, Springet Penn, whose heir he is, he finds that Sir William

« 上一頁繼續 »