point in Parliament, and this might be attended with good effects.

If you cannot obtain for us permission to send a commissary, possibly you may find a trusty, humane, discreet person at Plymouth, and another at Portsmouth, who would undertake to communicate what relief we may be able to afford those unfortunate men, martyrs to the cause of liberty. Your king will not reward you for taking this trouble, but God will. I shall not mention the gratitude of America; you will have what is better-the applause of your own good conscience. Our captains have set at liberty above two hundred of your people, made prisoners by our armed vessels and brought into France, besides a great number dismissed at sea on your coasts, to whom vessels were given to carry them in. But you have not returned us a man in exchange. If we had sold your people to the Moors at Sallee, as you have many of ours to the African and East India Companies, could you have complained?

In revising what I have written, I found too much warmth in it, and was about to strike out some parts. Yet I let them go, as they will afford you this one reflection: "If a man naturally cool, and rendered still cooler by old age, is so warmed by our treatment of his country, how much must those people in general be exasperated against us? And why are we making inveterate enemies by our barbarity, not only of the present inhabitants of a great country, but of their infinitely more numerous posterity, who will in future ages detest the name of Englishman, as much as the children in Holland now do those of Alva and

Spaniard." This will certainly happen, unless your conduct is speedily changed, and the national resentment falls, where it ought to fall heavily, on your ministry, or perhaps rather on the king, whose will they only execute.

With the greatest esteem and affection, and best wishes for your prosperity, I have the honor to be, dear sir, etc., B. FRANKLIN.

SIR: I am much obliged by your communication of the letter from England. I am of your opinion, that it is not proper for publication here. Our friend's expressions concerning Mr. Wilson will be thought too angry to be made use of by one philosopher when speaking of another, and on a philosophical question. He seems as much heated about this one point as the Jansenists and Molinists were about the five. As to my writing any thing on the subject,

I A controversy had lately been raised among the philosophers in England respecting pointed and blunt lightning conductors. Mr. Wilson was the champion for blunt conductors, in opposition to the theory of Dr. Franklin. Pointed conductors had been erected at the queen's palace, but by the advice of Mr. Wilson they were taken down, and blunt ones substituted in their place. Dr. Ingenhousz, who was then in England, took up the subject with considerable warmth against Mr. Wilson, and wrote a letter to a gentleman in Paris, which he desired might be shown to Dr. Franklin. The above letter was written to that gentleman, who, as requested, had communicated the one he received from Dr. Ingenhousz.

which you seem to desire, I think it not necessary, especially as I have nothing to add to what I have already said upon it in a paper read to the committee who ordered the conductors at Purfleet, which paper is printed in the last French edition of my writings.

I have never entered into any controversy in defence of my philosophical opinions; I leave them to take their chance in the world. If they are right, truth and experience will support them; if wrong, they ought to be refuted and rejected. Disputes are apt to sour one's temper, and disturb one's quiet. I have no private interest in the reception of my inventions by the world, having never made, nor proposed to make, the least profit by any of them. The king's changing his pointed conductors for blunt ones is, therefore, a matter of small importance to me. If I had a wish about it, it would be that he had rejected them altogether as ineffectual. For it is only since he thought himself and family safe from the thunder of Heaven that he dared to use his own thunder in destroying his innocent subjects. I am, sir, yours, etc., B. FRANKLIN.

DCLXVIII

TO CAPTAIN THOMPSON AND C. HINMAN

PARIS, 25 November, 1777.

SIR: We advise you on your return to L'Orient to put your ship in readiness for sea,-Capt. Hinman

"Report on Lightning Conductors for the Powder Magazines at Purfleet," drawn up by Dr. Franklin, August 21, 1772. See that

date.

will do the same,—and after you have obtained the best intelligence to be had of the British merchantships and property. As it is by no means safe to return into the ports of France, you will calculate your stores, so as to have a sufficiency for your cruise, which we cannot indeed be particular in the direction of. It has been suggested that one or more of the India ships returning may be intercepted, that part of the West India homeward-bound ships may be expected about this time, as well as transports returning from New York and elsewhere in America, and that by cruising in the proper latitudes you may meet with them. That the British factories and commerce on the African coast at this time lie without any force sufficient to protect them, and that by running along that coast you may greatly annoy and distress the enemy in that quarter, and afterwards go for the West Indies.

As you and Captain Hinman have already considered these several plans for a cruise, we leave with you to determine which to prefer, and the manner in prosecuting either, or any other that may appear more likely to answer the design of your commission. We are happy in observing the harmony and confidence which subsists between you and Captain Hinman, and hope the same prevails between your officers and men, which we are certain you will cultivate through the whole of your expedition, in which we recommend to you, to avoid giving any offence to the flags of neutral powers, and to show them proper marks of respect and friendship. As you may meet with vessels of the enemy so near the coast of Eu

rope, that you may be under the necessity of sending them into some port of France, we advise you to agree with Messrs. Goularde, etc., on the method of conduct in such case, previous to your departure, and give orders to the officers to whom you give the command of such prizes, accordingly thereto. Whenever you judge it prudent to dismiss prisoners, subjects of his Britannic Majesty, we advise you to take from them in writing an acknowledgment of their having been your prisoners, their quality, place of residence, and that they are dismissed by you in confidence that an equal number of the subjects of the thirteen United States of the same rank, that now are, or may hereafter be prisoners to his said Britannic Majesty will be set at liberty. You are also to deliver a copy of such writing to the prisoners, enjoining them to deliver the same on their arrival in Britain to the Lords of the British Admiralty, and by the first opportunity inclose a duplicate to the committee or board of marine in Boston, and another to us, with an account of your proceedings. We shall deliver Captain Hinman a copy of this letter, who will proceed in concert with you in the cruise.

With best wishes [incomplete]

DCLXIX

TO MR. THORNTON

You will receive herewith a letter to Lord North and another to Sir Grey Cooper, Secretary of the