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CCCCIII: TO WILLIAM FRANKLIN - Benjamin Franklin, The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. V Letters and Misc. Writings 1768-1772 [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. V (Letters and Misc. Writings 1768-1772).

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CCCCIII

TO WILLIAM FRANKLIN

London, 20 April, 1771.

Dear Son:—

It is long since I have heard from you. The last packet brought me no letter, and there are two packets now due. It is supposed that the long easterly winds have kept them back. We have had a severe and tedious winter. There is not yet the smallest appearance of spring. Not a bud has pushed out, nor a blade of grass. The turnips, that used to feed the cattle, have been destroyed by the frost. The hay in most parts of the country is gone, and the cattle perishing for want, the lambs dying by thousands through cold and scanty nourishment. On Tuesday last I went to dine at our friend Sir Matthew Featherstone’s through a heavy storm of snow. His windows, you know, look into the park. Towards evening, I observed the snow still lying over all the park, for the ground was before too cold to thaw, it being itself frozen, and ice in the canal. You cannot imagine a more winterlike prospect. Sir Matthew and Lady Featherstone always inquire kindly of your welfare, as do Mr. and Mrs. Sargent.

Sir John Pringle has heard from Mr. Bowman of your kindness to that gentleman, and desires I would present his particular acknowledgments for the attention you have paid to his recommendation. The Ohio affair seems now near a conclusion, and if the present ministry stand a little longer, I think it will be completed to our satisfaction. Mr. Wharton has been indefatigable, and I think scarce any one I know besides would have been equal to the task, so difficult it is to get business forward here, in which some party purpose is not to be served. But he is always among them, and leaves no stone unturned.1

I have attended several times this winter upon your acts of Assembly. The Board are not favorably disposed towards your insolvent acts, pretending to doubt whether distant creditors, particularly such as reside in England, may not sometimes be injured by them. I have had a good deal of conversation with Mr. Jackson about them, who remarks that whatever care the Assembly may, according to my representation of their practice, take in examining into the cases to prevent injustice, yet upon the face of the acts nothing of that care appears. The preambles only say that such and such persons have petitioned and set forth the hardship of their imprisonment, but not a word of the Assembly’s having inquired into the allegations contained in such petitions and found them true; not a word of the general consent of the principal creditors, or of any public notice given of the debtor’s intention to apply for such an act; all which, he thinks, should appear in the preambles. And then those acts would be subject to less objection and difficulty in getting them through the offices here. I would have you communicate this to the Speaker of the Assembly, with my best respects. I doubt some of those acts will be repealed. Nothing has been done, or is now likely to be done, by the Parliament in American affairs. The House of Commons and the city of London are got into a violent controversy, that seems at present to engross the public attention, and the session cannot continue much longer.

By this ship I send the picture that you left with Meyer. He has never yet finished the miniatures. The other pictures I send with it are for my own house, but this you may take to yours.

B. Franklin.

[1 ]For an account of this “Ohio affair,” see vol. iv., p. 416.