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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: History

CCCXIV: TO M. DALIBARD - Benjamin Franklin, The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. IV Letters and Misc. Writings 1763-1768 [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. IV (Letters and Misc. Writings 1763-1768).

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CCCXIV

TO M. DALIBARD

London, 31 January, 1768.

Dear Sir:—

I sent you some time since, Priestley’s History of Electricity, under the care of Mr. Molini, bookseller on the Quay des Augustins. I hope it got safe to Paris, and that you have reviewed it. I wish the reading of it may renew your taste for that branch of philosophy, which is already indebted to you as being the first of mankind that had the courage to attempt drawing lightning from the clouds to be subjected to your experiments.

In our return home, we were detained a week at Calais by contrary winds and stormy weather which was the more mortifying to me, when I reflected that I might have enjoyed Paris and my friends there all this time, and yet have been as soon at London.

As I became in arrear with my business by so long an absence, I have been necessarily much occupied since my return, and have therefore postponed from time to time (and so long that I am now ashamed of it) the purpose I had of writing soon to you, to express the sense I have of your kindness to me when a stranger at Paris, and of the many civilities I received from you there and from Mrs. Dalibard, which I assure you have made a lasting impression on my memory. I beg you will both of you accept my sincerest thanks and acknowledgments. The time I spent in Paris, and in the improving conversation and agreeable society of so many ingenious and learned men, seems now to me like a pleasing dream, from which I was only to be awakened by finding myself at London.

With the greatest esteem and best wishes for your health and happiness, I have the honor to be,

Dear Sir, &c.,

B. Franklin.