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DLXII: TO SAMUEL COOPER - 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).

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DLXII

TO SAMUEL COOPER

London, 25 February, 1774.

Dear Sir:—

I have written a pretty full account to the Speaker of the treatment their petition and their agent have received here. My letter went to Symes, and probably you may have seen it before this can reach you; therefore, and because I have a little disorder in my eyes at present, I do not repeat any part of it to you, nor can I well send a copy to him.

You can have no conception of the rage the ministerial people have been in with me, on account of my transmitting those letters. It is quite incomprehensible. If they had been wise, they might have made a good use of the discovery, by agreeing to lay the blame of our differences on those from whom, by those letters, it appeared to have arisen, and by a change of measures, which would then have appeared natural, and restored the harmony between the two countries.

I send, directed to you a set of the late French edition of my Philosophical Papers.1 There are in it several pieces not in the English. When you have looked them over, please to give them to Mr. Winthrop, for the college library. I am ever, dear sir, yours most affectionately,

B. Franklin.

[1 ]Dubourg’s edition, in two quarto volumes, published in 1773.