my papers in the trunk, which I unhappily left in the care of Mr. Galloway, were eight or ten quire or two-quire books, of rough drafts of my letters, containing all my correspondence when in England, for near twenty years. I shall be very sorry if they too are lost. Do not you think it possible, by going up into that country, and inquiring a little among the neighbors, you might possibly hear of and recover some of them. I should not have left them in his hands if he had not deceived me by saying that though he was before otherwise inclined, yet that, since the king had declared us out of his protection, and the Parliament by an act had made our properties plunder, he would go as far in the defence of his country as any man, and accordingly he had lately, with pleasure, given colors to a regiment of militia, and an entertainment to four hundred of them before his house. I thought he was become a staunch friend to the glorious cause. I was mistaken. As he was a friend of my son’s, to whom in my will I had left all my books and papers, I made him one of my executors, and put the trunk of papers in his hands, imagining them safer in his house (which was out of the way of any probable march of the enemy’s troops) than in my own. It was very unlucky.
My love to Sally and the children. I shall soon write to all my friends. At present I am pinched in time, and can only add that I am ever your affectionate father,
B. Franklin.
DCCCCXCVI. TO FRANCIS HOPKINSON
Passy, 13 September, 1781.
Dear Sir:—
I have received your kind letter of July 17th, with its duplicate, enclosing those for Messrs. Brandlight & Sons, which I have forwarded. I am sorry for the loss of the Squibs. Every thing of yours gives me pleasure.
As to the friends and enemies you just mention, I have hitherto, thanks to God, had plenty of the former kind; they have been my treasure, and it has perhaps been of no disadvantage to me that I have had a few of the latter. They serve to put us upon correcting the faults we have, and avoiding those we are in danger of having. They counteract the mischief flattery might do us, and the malicious attacks make our friends more zealous in serving us and promoting our interest. At present I do not know of more than two such enemies that I enjoy, viz. —— and ——. I deserve the enmity of the latter, because I might have avoided it by paying him a compliment, which I neglected. That of the former I owe to the people of France, who happened to respect me too much and him too little, which I could bear, and he could not. They are unhappy that they cannot make everybody hate me as much as they do, and I should be so if my friends did not love me much more than those gentlemen can possibly love one another.
Enough of this subject. Let me know if you are in possession of my gimcrack instruments, and if you have made any new experiments. I lent, many years ago, a large glass globe, mounted, to Mr. Coombe, and an electric battery of bottles, which I remember; perhaps there were some other things. He may have had them so long as to think them his own. Pray ask him for them, and keep them for me, together with the rest.
You have a new crop of prose writers. I see in your papers many of their fictitious names, but nobody tells me the real. You will oblige me by a little of your literary history. Adieu, my dear friend, and believe me ever yours affectionately,
B. Franklin.
DCCCCXCVII. TO JOHN INGENHOUSZ
Passy, 2 October, 1781.
It is a long time, my dear friend, since I have had the pleasure of writing to you. I have postponed it too often from a desire of writing a good deal on various subjects, which I could not find sufficient time to think of properly. Your experiments on the conducting of heat was one subject; the finishing my remarks on the stroke of lightning in Italy was another. Then I was taken ill with a severe fit of the gout soon after you left us, which held me near three months, and put my business and correspondence so far behindhand that I was long in getting it up again. Add to this, that I find indolence increases with age, and that I have not near the activity I formerly had. But I cannot afford to lose your correspondence, in which I have always found so much pleasure and instruction. I now force myself to write, and I fancy this letter will be long.
I have now before me your several favors of December 5th, 1780, February 7th, April 7th, May 23d, and August 29th, 1781. I was glad to find by the first that you enjoyed a good state of health, and that you had leisure to pursue your philosophical inquiries. I wish you that continued success, which so much industry, sagacity, and exactness in making experiments have a right to expect. You will have much immediate pleasure by that success, and in time great reputation. But for the present the reputation will be given grudgingly, and in as small a quantity as possible, mixed, too, with some mortification. One would think that a man so laboring disinterestedly for the good of his fellow-creatures, could not possibly by such means make himself enemies; but there are minds who cannot bear that another should distinguish himself even by greater usefulness; and, though he demands no profit, nor any thing in return but the good-will of those he is serving, they will endeavor to deprive him of that, first, by disputing the truth of his experiments, then their utility; and, being defeated there, they finally dispute his right to them, and would give the credit of them to a man that lived three thousand years ago, or at three thousand leagues’ distance, rather than to a neighbor, or even a friend. Go on, however, and never be discouraged. Others have met with the same treatment before you, and will after you. And, whatever some may think and say, it is worth while to do men good, for the self-satisfaction one has in the reflection.
Your account of the experiments you made with the wires gave me a great deal of pleasure. I have shown it to several persons here, who think it exceedingly curious. If you should ever repeat those experiments, I wish your attention to one circumstance. I think it possible that, in dipping them into the wax, and taking them out suddenly, the metal which attracts heat most readily may chill and draw out with it a thicker coat of wax; and this thicker coat might, in the progress of the experiment, be longer melting. They should therefore be kept so long in the wax, as to be all and equally heated. Perhaps you may thus find the progress of heat in the silver quicker and greater. I think, also, that, if the hot oil in which you dipped the ends was not stagnant, but in motion, the experiment would be more complete, because the wire which quickest diminishes the heat of the oil next to it, finds soonest the difficulty of getting more heat from the oil farther distant, which depends on the nature of the oil as a conductor of heat, that which is already cooled interfering between the hotter oil and the wire. In reversing the experiment also, to try which of the metals cools fastest, I think the wires should be dipped in running cold water; for, when stagnant, the hot wires, by communicating heat to the water that is near them, will make it less capable of receiving more heat; and, as the metals which communicate their heat most freely and readily will soonest warm the water round them, the operation of such metals may therefore soonest stop; not because they naturally longer withhold their heat, but because the water near them is not in a state to receive it. I do not know that these hints are founded; I suggest them only as meriting a little consideration. Every one is surprised that the progress of the heat seems to have no connection with the gravity or the levity of the metals.
B. Franklin.
DCCCCXCVIII. FROM JOHN ADAMS
Amsterdam, 4 October, 1781.
Sir:—
Since the 25th of August, when I had the honor to write to you, this is the first time that I have taken a pen in hand to write to anybody, having been
