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CVIII: TO CADWALLADER COLDEN - Benjamin Franklin, The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. III Letters and Misc. Writings 1753-1763 [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. III (Letters and Misc. Writings 1753-1763).

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CVIII

TO CADWALLADER COLDEN

Philadelphia, 6 December, 1753.

Dear Sir:—

I received your favor of the 19th past, with some remarks on my meteorological paper, for which I thank you and return some observations on those remarks, hoping by this friendly intercourse of sentiments and objections some advantage will arise, to the increase of true knowledge.

I sent you our treaty some time since. You will find very little in it; but I have hopes it will introduce a regulation of our Indian trade, by the government taking it in hand and furnishing the Indians with goods at the cheapest rate without aiming at profit, as is done by Massachusetts; by which means I think we must vastly undersell the French, and thereby attach the Indians more firmly to the British interest.

Mr. Collinson certainly received your answer to Kastner. I think one of his letters to me mentions it.

I send you herewith a copy of my paper on the Increase of Mankind; the only one I have, so must request you to return it. That on the Air, &c., is what you have already seen. The third mentioned to you by Mr. Collinson concerning the Germans, is scarcely worth sending. It will contain nothing new to you.

I congratulate you on Lord Halifax’s approbation of your conduct in public affairs. From such a man the honor is great, and the satisfaction; but the approbation of your own mind is something more valuable in itself, and it is what I doubt not you will always enjoy.

I should like to see Pike’s book some time or other, when you can conveniently send it. With great respect and esteem, I am, Sir, &c.,

B. Franklin.