Читать книгу The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Volume 9 - Бенджамин Франклин - Страница 16

Passy, 13 September, 1781.

Dear Son:—

I received yours of June 20th. It gave me great pleasure, as it informed me of the welfare of yourself and the dear family.

I have read Mr. Wharton’s pamphlet. The facts, as far as I know them, are as he states them. Justice is, I think, on the side of those who contracted for the lands. ^{Ref. 011} But moral and political rights sometimes differ, and sometimes are both subdued by might. I received, and thank you for, several copies of the Indian Spelling Book. I received also the German and English newspapers.

Among 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.