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CCXIX: TO LORD KAMES - 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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CCXIX

TO LORD KAMES

Portsmouth, 17 August, 1762.

My Dear Lord:—

I am now waiting here only for a wind to waft me to America, but cannot leave this happy island and my friends in it without extreme regret, though I am going to a country and a people that I love. I am going from the old world to the new; and I fancy I feel like those who are leaving this world for the next: grief at the parting; fear of the passage; hope of the future. These different passions all affect their minds at once; and these have tendered me down exceedingly. It is usual for the dying to beg forgiveness of their surviving friends, if they have ever offended them.

Can you, my Lord, forgive my long silence, and my not acknowledging till now the favor you did me in sending me your excellent book? Can you make some allowance for a fault in others which you have never experienced in yourself; for the bad habit of postponing from day to day what one every day resolves to do to-morrow?—a habit that grows upon us with years, and whose only excuse is we know not how to mend it. If you are disposed to favor me you will also consider how much one’s mind is taken up and distracted by the many little affairs one has to settle before the undertaking such a voyage, after so long a residence in a country; and how little, in such a situation, one’s mind is fitted for serious and attentive reading; which, with regard to the Elements of Criticism, I intended before I should write. I can now only confess and endeavour to amend. In packing up my books, I have reserved yours to read on the passage. I hope I shall therefore be able to write to you upon it soon after my arrival. At present I can only return my thanks, and say that the parts I have read gave me both pleasure and instruction; that I am convinced of your position, new as it was to me, that a good taste in the arts contributes to the improvement of morals; and that I have had the satisfaction of hearing the work universally commended by those who have read it.

And now, my dear Sir, accept my sincere thanks for the kindness you have shown me, and my best wishes of happiness to you and yours. Wherever I am, I shall esteem the friendship you honor me with as one of the felicities of my life; I shall endeavour to cultivate it by a more punctual correspondence; and I hope frequently to hear of your welfare and prosperity. Adieu, my dear friend, and believe me ever most affectionately yours,

B. Franklin.1

[1 ]Though Dr. Franklin sailed from England in the latter half of August, and soon after writing this letter, he did not reach Philadelphia until the 1st of November. He had been absent five years, having arrived in England in July, 1757. The Assembly of Pennsylvania promptly voted their thanks to him for his services as their agent.