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Front Page  Titles (by Subject) XLIX: TO CADWALLADER COLDEN - The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. II Letters and Misc. Writings 1735-1753
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XLIX: TO CADWALLADER COLDEN - Benjamin Franklin, The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. II Letters and Misc. Writings 1735-1753 [1904]Edition used:The Works of Benjamin Franklin, including the Private as well as the Official and Scientific Correspondence, together with the Unmutilated and Correct Version of the Autobiography, compiled and edited by John Bigelow (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904). The Federal Edition in 12 volumes. Vol. II (Letters and Misc. Writings 1735-1753).
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XLIXTO CADWALLADER COLDENPhiladelphia, 27 November, 1747. Sir:—The violent party spirit that appears in all the votes, &c., of your Assembly seems to me extremely unseasonable as well as unjust, and to threaten mischief not only to yourselves but to your neighbours. It begins to be plain that the French may reap great advantages from your divisions. God grant they may be as blind to their own interest, and as negligent of it as the English are of theirs. It must be inconvenient to you to remove your family, but more so to you and them to live under continual apprehensions and alarms. I shall be glad to hear you are all in a place of safety. Though Plain Truth1 bore somewhat hard on both parties here, it has had the happiness not to give much offence to either. It has wonderfully spirited us up to defend ourselves and country, to which end great numbers are entering into an association, of which I send you a copy enclosed. We are likewise setting on foot a lottery to raise three thousand pounds for erecting a battery of cannon below the city. We have petitioned the Proprietor to send us some from England, and have ordered our correspondents to send us over a parcel, if the application to the Proprietor fails. But, lest by any accident they should miscarry, I am desired to write to you and ask your opinion whether, if our government should apply to Governor Clinton to borrow a few of your spare cannon till we could be supplied, such application might probably meet with success. Pray excuse the effects of haste on this letter. I am, Sir, with the greatest respect, your most obliged humble servant, B. Franklin. [1 ]See this tract, supra. |
