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CCCCXIV: TO MRS. DEBORAH 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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CCCCXIV

TO MRS. DEBORAH FRANKLIN

London, 14 August, 1771.

My Dear Child:—

I am glad to hear of all your welfares, and that the pictures were safe arrived. You do not tell me who mounted the great one, nor where you have it hung up. Let me know whether Dr. Bond likes the new one better than the old one; if so, the old one is to be returned hither to Mr. Wilson the painter. You may keep the frame, as it may be wanted for some other picture there. I wrote to you a letter the beginning of last month, which was to go by Captain Falconer, and have since been in the country. I am just returned to town, and find him still here, and the letters not gone. He goes, however, next Saturday.

I had written to many of my friends by him. I spent three weeks in Hampshire, at my friend, the Bishop of St. Asaph’s. The Bishop’s lady knows what children and grandchildren I have and their ages; so, when I was to come away on Monday, the 12th, in the morning, she insisted on my staying that one day longer, that we might together keep my grandson’s birthday. At dinner, among other nice things, we had a floating island, which they always particularly have on the birthdays of any of their own six children, who were all but one at table, where there was also a clergyman’s widow, now above one hundred years old. The chief toast of the day was Master Benjamin Bache, which the venerable old lady began in a bumper of mountain. The Bishop’s lady politely added, “and that he may be as good a man as his grandfather.” I said I hoped he would be much better. The Bishop, still more complaisant than his lady, said: “We will compound the matter, and be contented if he should not prove quite so good.” This chitchat is to yourself only, in return for some of yours about your grandson, and must only be read to Sally, and not spoken of to anybody else; for you know how people add and alter silly stories that they hear, and make them appear ten times more silly.

Just while I am writing, the post brings me the inclosed from the good Bishop, with some letters of recommendation for Ireland, to see which country I am to set out next week with my old friend and fellow traveller, Counsellor Jackson. We expect to be absent a month or six weeks. The Bishop’s youngest daughter, mentioned in his letter, is about thirteen years of age, and came up with me in the postchaise to go to school.

Captain Osborn is not yet arrived here, but is every day expected. I hope he will come before I set out, that I may hear from you by him. I desire you will push the inquiry after the Lancaster Dutchman, and not let it sleep and be forgotten. I send you by Captain Falconer a box of looking-glasses for the closet door in the——[The remainder is lost.]