States, continually growing stronger, will have them at last; and, by the generous conduct above hinted at, all the intermediate loss of blood and treasure might be spared, and solid, lasting peace promoted. This seems to me good counsel, but I know it cannot be followed.

The friend you mention must always be welcome to me, with or without the cheeses; but I do not see how his coming hither could be of any use at present, unless in the quality of a plenipotentiary to treat of a sincere peace between all parties.

Your Commissioners are acting very indiscreetly in America. They first spoke very disrespectfully of our good ally. They have since called in question the power of Congress to treat with them, and have endeavored to begin a dispute about the detention of Burgoyne's troops, an affair which I conceive not to be within their commission. They are vainly trying, by publications, to excite the people against the Congress. Governor Johnstone has been attempting to bribe the members; and, without the least regard to truth, has asserted three propositions, which, he says, he will undertake to prove. The two first of them I know to be false, and I believe the third to be The Congress have refused to treat with the Commissioners while he continues one of them, and he has therefore resigned.

These gentlemen do not appear well qualified for their business. I think they will never heal the

I Time has confirmed the correctness of Franklin's impressions. All three of his propositions have proved false.-—EDITOR.

breach, but they may widen it. I am, my very dear friend, yours most affectionately,

B. FRANKLIN.

DCCXXI

TO MR. GRAND

PASSY, 3 November, 1778.

We owe our thanks, sir, to the person who has transmitted to us, through you, the complaint we have received against Mr. Conyngham, and we can assure him anew that, penetrated with respect for S. M. C., nothing pains us more than complaints on his part against our people. He will have seen, by the papers transmitted by you at the time from us to S. E. M. Count d'Aranda, the measures which Congress have taken to prevent any misconduct on the part of our privateers and seamen, and nothing better proves its solicitude in this regard than the proclamation it has just issued, of which the enclosed No. 2 is a copy, and to which we join its resolution for the protection of the property of a ship although belonging to a power with which we have no sympathy.

But if one directs his attention to the atrocious proceedings of the English towards all nations without distinction, he will not be surprised that their pernicious example finds imitators among some individuals of a nation which they have so greatly outraged. But this does not excuse Conyngham. It is a crime in our eyes to have displeased a power for which Congress is penetrated with respect, and

although justified in seizing, by way of reprisals, the English prize which Conyngham had brought to Teneriffe to be sent to Martinique, we will none the less inform Congress of the grounds for complaint which this privateer has given to his Catholic Majesty. This will certainly be a new motive for paying to his flag the homage and respect which it entertains for him. I hope from the wisdom as well as from the justice of S. M. that he will confide in this expression of our sentiments towards him and in turn will permit us to experience the effects of them. I have the honor to be, etc.,

B. FRANKLIN.'

DCCXXII

TO DAVID HARTLEY

PASSY, 29 November, 1778.

DEAR SIR: I have heard nothing from you lately concerning the exchange of prisoners. Is that affair dropped? Winter is coming on apace. I understand that your charitable contribution is near expended, and not likely to be renewed. Many of those unfortunate people must suffer greatly. I wish to have a line from you informing me what may be depended on. I am as ever,

B. FRANKLIN.

I Translated from a French version transmitted by Count Aranda to Florida Blanca and now deposited in the Archivo General de Reino, in Simancas.-EDITOR.

DCCXXIII

TO DR. PRIESTLEY (PROBABLY)

You desire to know my opinion of what will probably be the end of this war, and whether our new establishments will not be thereby reduced again to deserts. I do not, for my part, apprehend much danger of so great an evil to us. I think we shall be able, with a little help, to defend ourselves, our possessions, and our liberties so long that England will be ruined by persisting in the wicked attempt to destroy them. I must nevertheless regret that ruin, and wish that her injustice and tyranny had not deserved it. And I sometimes flatter myself that, old as I am, I may possibly live to see my country settled in peace and prosperity, when Britain shall make no more a formidable figure among the powers of Europe.

You put me in mind of an apology for my conduct, which had been expected from me in answer to the abuses thrown upon me before the Privy Council. It was partly written, but the affairs of public importance I have been ever since engaged in prevented my finishing it. The injuries too that my country has suffered have absorbed private resentments, and made it appear trifling for an individual to trouble the world with his particular justification, when all his compatriots were stigmatized by the king and Parliament as being in every respect the worst of mankind. I am obliged to you, however, for the friendly part you have always taken in the defence

of my character; and it is indeed no small argument in my favor that those who have known me most and longest still love me and trust me with their most important interests, of which my election into the Congress by the unanimous voice of the Assembly or Parliament of Pennsylvania the day after my arrival from England, and my present mission hither by the Congress itself, are instances incontestable.

I thank you for the account you give me of M. Volta's experiment. You judge rightly in supposing that I have not much time at present to consider philosophical matters; but as far as I understand it from your description, it is only another form of the Leyden phial, and explicable by the same principles. I must, however, own myself puzzled by one part of your account, viz., "and thus the electric force once excited may be kept alive years together,” which perhaps is only a mistake. I have known it indeed to be continued many months in a phial hermetically sealed, and suppose it may be so preserved for ages; but though one may, by repeatedly touching the knob of a charged bottle with a small insulated plate, like the upper one of the electrophore, draw an incredible number of sparks successively-that is, one after every touch, and those for a while not apparently different in magnitude, yet at length they will become small, and the charge be finally exhausted. But I am in the wrong to give any opinion till I have seen the experiment.

I like much your pasteboard machine, and I think it may, in some respects, be preferable to the very large glass ones constructed here. The Duc de