CORRESPONDENCE.

SIR,

TO SIR HANS SLOANE.*

Offering a Purse made of Asbestos.

London, 2 June, 1725.

Having lately been in the northern parts of America, I have brought from thence a purse made of the asbestos, a piece of the stone, and a piece of the wood, the pithy part of which is of the same nature, and called by the inhabitants salamander cotton. As you are noted to be a lover of curiosities, I have informed you of these; and if you have any inclination to purchase or see them, let me know your pleasure by a line for me at the

* First printed in the GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE for September, 1780, among several letters to Sir Hans Sloane from Alexander Pope and others. The author was nineteen years old at the time this letter was written, and was then residing in London, employed as a printer. He speaks of the asbestos in his autobiography, and says, "Sir Hans Sloane came to see me, and invited me to his house in Bloomsbury Square, showed me all his curiosities, and persuaded me to add that to the number; for which he paid me handsomely."

N. B. In the preceding volumes, consisting of essays and miscellaneous papers, many notes have been subjoined, which were written by the author and other persons. The names or initials of the writers have been affixed to these notes; and those added by the Editor have likewise been designated. Throughout the CORRESPONDENCE very few notes will occur, which are not furnished by the Editor, and for all such as are not expressly assigned to some other person he is responsible.

VOL. VII.

1

A

Golden Fan, Little Britain, and I will wait upon you with them. I am, Sir, your most humble servant, B. FRANKLIN.

P. S. I expect to be out of town in two or three days, and therefore beg an immediate answer.

TO MISS JANE FRANKLIN.*

DEAR SISTER,

Philadelphia, 6 January, 1726-7.

I am highly pleased with the account Captain Freeman gives me of you. I always judged by your behaviour when a child, that you would make a good, agreeable woman, and you know you were ever my peculiar favorite. I have been thinking what would be a suitable present for me to make, and for you to receive, as I hear you are grown a celebrated beauty. I had almost determined on a tea-table; but when I considered, that the character of a good housewife was far preferable to that of being only a pretty gentlewoman, I concluded to send you a spinning-wheel, which I hope you will accept as a small token of my sincere love and affection.

Sister, farewell, and remember that modesty, as it makes the most homely virgin amiable and charming, so the want of it infallibly renders the most perfect beauty disagreeable and odious. But, when that brightest of female virtues shines among other perfections of body and mind in the same person, it makes the woman more lovely than an angel. Excuse this freedom, and use the same with me. I am, dear Jenny, your loving brother, B. FRANKLIN.

*His youngest sister, at this time nearly fifteen years old.

TO MRS. SARAH DAVENPORT.

DEAR SISTER,

[Date uncertain.]

Your kind and affectionate letter of May 15th was extremely agreeable to me, and the more so, because I had not for two years before received a line from any relation, my father and mother only excepted. I am glad to hear your family are got well through the smallpox, and that you have your health continued to you.

I am sorry to hear of sister Mecom's loss, and should be mighty glad to have a line from her, and from sister Holmes, who need be under no apprehensions of not writing polite enough to such an unpolite reader as 1 am. I think, if politeness is necessary to make letters between brothers and sisters agreeable, there must be very little love among them.

I am not about to be married, as you have heard. At present I am much hurried in business, but hope to make a short trip to Boston in the spring.

Please to let me know how sister Dowse is, and remember my kind love to her, as also to brother Peter and sister Lydia.* Dear sister, I love you tenderly. Adieu. B. FRANKLIN.

This sister was afterwards married to Mr. Robert Scott.

TO MRS. JANE MECOM."

*

Family Afflictions. — Singular Instance of Mortality.

DEAR SISTER,

Philadelphia, 19 June, 1731.

Yours of May 26th I received, with the melancholy news of the death of sister Davenport, a loss, without doubt, regretted by all that knew her, for she was a good woman. Her friends ought, however, to be comforted that they have enjoyed her so long, and that she has passed through the world happily, having never had any extraordinary misfortune or notable affliction, and that she is now secure in rest, in the place provided for the virtuous. I had before heard of the death of your first child, and am pleased that the loss is in some measure made up to you by the birth of a second.

We have had the smallpox here lately, which raged violently while it lasted. There have been about fifty persons inoculated, who all recovered, except a child of the doctor's, upon whom the smallpox appeared within a day or two after the operation, and who is therefore thought to have been certainly infected before. In one family in my neighbourhood there appeared a great mortality. Mr. George Claypoole (a descendant of Oliver Cromwell) had, by industry, acquired a great estate, and being in excellent business, a merchant, would probably have doubled it, had he lived according to the common course of years. He died first, suddenly; within a short time died his best negro; then one of his children; then a negro woman; then two children more, buried at the same time; then two more;

* His sister Jane was married to Mr. Edward Mecom, of Boston, on the 27th of July, 1727.- DUAne.

so that I saw two double buryings come out of the house in one week. None were left in the family, but the mother and one child, and both their lives till lately despaired of; so that all the father's wealth, which everybody thought, a little while ago, had heirs enough, and no one would have given sixpence for the reversion, was in a few weeks brought to the greatest probability of being divided among strangers; so uncertain are all human affairs. The dissolution of this family is generally ascribed to an imprudent use of quicksilver in the cure of the itch, Mr. Claypoole applying it as he thought proper, without consulting a physician for fear of charges; and the smallpox coming upon them at the same time made their case desperate.

But what gives me the greatest concern, is the account you give me of my sister Holmes's misfortune. I know a cancer in the breast is often thought incurable; yet we have here in town a kind of shell made of some wood, cut at a proper time, by some man of great skill, (as they say,) which has done wonders in that disease among us, being worn for some time on the breast. I am not apt to be superstitiously fond of believing such things, but the instances are so well attested, as sufficiently to convince the most incredulous.

This, if I have interest enough to procure, as I think I have, I will borrow for a time, and send it to you, and hope the doctors you have will at least allow the experiment to be tried, and shall rejoice to hear it has the accustomed effect.

You have mentioned nothing in your letter of our dear parents; but I conclude they are well, because you say nothing to the contrary. I want to hear from sister Dowse, and to know of her welfare, as also of my sister Lydia, who I hear is lately married. I intended to have visited you this summer, but printing the paper