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CCCCXL: 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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CCCCXL

TO MRS. DEBORAH FRANKLIN

London, 5 May, 1772.

My Dear Child:—

I received your kind letter of March 2d, and am glad to hear that the ship from Ireland is got safe into Antigua. I hope you will now get the little token I sent you from thence. I have not received the letter you mention to have given the young Scotchman, nor that from Mr. Craige.

I am sorry for the disorder that has fallen on our friend Kinnersley, but hope he will get the better of it. I thank you for your advice about putting back a fit of the gout. I shall never attempt such a thing. Indeed I have not much occasion to complain of the gout, having had but two slight fits since I came last to England. I hope Mr. Bache is with you and his family by this time, as he sailed from the Downs the latter end of February. My love to him and Sally, and young master, who, I suppose, is master of the house. Tell him that Billy Hewson is as much thought of here as he can be there; was weaned last Saturday; loves music; comes to see his grandmother; and will be lifted up to knock at the door himself, as he has done while I was writing this at the request of Mrs. Stevenson, who sends her love, as Sally does her duty. Thanks to God, I continue well, and am, as ever, your affectionate husband,

B. Franklin.1

[1 ]He wrote the same day to another correspondent. “The session of Parliament has been a quiet one, and now draws near a conclusion. Opposition has made no figure, and Lord North manages ably. Peace is negotiating between the Turks and Russians, and miserable Poland is in a fair way of being pacified too, if the entrance of more standing armies into it can produce peace. There is no appearance of any other war likely to arise in Europe, and thence a prospect of lessening considerably the national debt. I continue well. Sir John Pringle has proposed to me a journey for this summer to Switzerland. But I have not resolved upon it, and I believe I shall not. I am balancing upon a wish of visiting at least, if not returning for good and all (as the phrase is) to America. If I do not do that, I shall spend the summer with some or other of those friends who have invited me to their country-houses.”