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CXX: TO JARED ELIOT - 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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CXX

TO JARED ELIOT

Philadelphia, 1 September, 1755.

Dear Sir:—

I wrote to you yesterday, and now I write again. You will say, It can’t rain, but it pours; for I not only send you manuscript but living letters. The former may be short, but the latter will be longer and yet more agreeable. Mr. Bartram, I believe you will find to be at least twenty folio pages, large paper well filled, on the subjects of botany, fossils, husbandry, and the first creation. This Mr. Allison is as many or more on agriculture, philosophy, your own catholic divinity, and various other points of learning equally useful and engaging. Read them both. It will take you at least a week; and then answer by sending me two of the like kind, or by coming yourself. If you fail of this, I shall think I have overbalanced my epistolary account, and that you will be in my debt as a correspondent for at least twelve months to come.

I remember with pleasure the cheerful hours I enjoyed last winter in your company, and would with all my heart give any ten of the thick old folios that stand on the shelves before me for a little book of the stories you then told with so much propriety and humor. Adieu, my dear friend, and believe me ever yours affectionately,

B. Franklin.