Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow CCCCLXXXII: TO MRS. DEBORAH FRANKLIN - The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. VI Letters and Misc. Writings 1772-1775

Return to Title Page for The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. VI Letters and Misc. Writings 1772-1775

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

Subject Area: Political Theory

CCCCLXXXII: TO MRS. DEBORAH FRANKLIN - Benjamin Franklin, The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. VI Letters and Misc. Writings 1772-1775 [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. VI (Letters and Misc. Writings 1772-1775).

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


CCCCLXXXII

TO MRS. DEBORAH FRANKLIN

London, 14 February, 1773.

My Dear Child:—

I wrote to you a few days since by the packet. In a box directed to Mr. Bache, I sent a striped cotton and silk gown for you, of a manufacture now much the mode here. There is another for Sally. People line them with some old silk gown, and they look very handsome. There goes also a bedstead for Sally, sent on Capt. All’s telling Mrs. Stevenson that you wished it had been sent with the bed. She sends also some little things for Benny Boy.

Now, having nothing very material to add, let us trifle a little. The fine large gray squirrel you sent, who was a great favorite in the bishop’s family, is dead. He had got out of his cage in the country, rambled, and was rambling over a common three miles from home, when he met a man with a dog. The dog pursuing him, he fled to the man for protection; running up to his shoulder, who shook him off, and set the dog on him, thinking him to be, as he said afterwards, some varment or other. So poor Mungo, as his mistress called him, died. To amuse you a little, and nobody out of your own house, I enclose you a little correspondence between her and me on the melancholy occasion. Skugg, you must know is a common name by which all squirrels are called here, as all cats are called Puss. Miss Georgianna is the bishop’s youngest daughter but one. There are five in all. Mungo was buried in the garden, and the enclosed epitaph put upon his monument. So much for squirrels.1

My poor cousin Walker, in Buckinghamshire, is a lacemaker. She was ambitious of presenting you and Sally with some netting of her work, but as I knew she could not afford it, I chose to pay for it at her usual price, 3/6 per yard. It goes also in the box. I name the price that, if it does not suit you to wear it, you may know how to dispose of it.

I have desired Miss Haydock to repay you the £8 6s. sterling, which I have laid out for her here on account of her silk. I think it is not the color she desired. I suppose her relation, Mrs. Forster, who took the management of it, will give her the reason.

My love to Sally and the dear boy. I am ever your affectionate husband,

B. Franklin.

[1 ]See this letter under date of September 26, 1772.