one or two from Scotland. Will you be so good as to inform yourself, if you do not know already, which is the best and latest, and send it to me by one of the first spring ships. Enclosed is an order on a banking-house for payment. On looking at it, I see it was intended by the lady that your brother should be troubled with this order. But 't is the same thing, you can have his opinion.

Our public affairs are getting fast into order, and we hope that in a year or two more they may be perfectly settled. The bad habits introduced by the war are also wearing out, and sober industry and frugality are taking place of idleness and dissipation. It is pleasant to see the world growing better and happier, though one [torn] to quit it. Next month, if I live to the middle of it, will finish my eightythird year. I have a good deal recovered from my last summer's illness, and am at present, thanks to God, pretty hearty, as well as all my family, who join in rejoicing that your good mother and sisters, those amiable girls, have also recovered their usual health. God bless and preserve you all, prays your affectionate friend and humble servant,

MDXXVIII

B. FRANKLIN.

TO THE ABBÉ MORELLET

PHILADELPHIA, 10 December, 1788.

DEAR FRIEND:-The suspension of the pacquet boats has deranged our correspondence. It is long,

VOL. XII.-3.

very long since I have been favored with a line from Auteuil, and M. de Chaumont informed me lately that a number of letters which I had sent to New York to go by the pacquet to France had been lying there many months after, no pacquet arriving by which they might be sent. Pray let me know whether you ever received my remarks on the English reasons for refusing to deliver up the posts on our frontiers? sent now near a year since, in return for your excellent Guichets and Nouvelles Cométalogie, with which I have most agreeably, entertained many of my friends. I am, however, not without resource in this dearth of news from that Academy, for I often read over and over again, and always with fresh pleasure, your and Abbé de la Roche's pleasing and instructive letter of July, 1787; and the friendly, affectionate griffonage, as she is pleased to call it, of that good dame,' whom we all love, and whose memory I shall love and honor as long as I have any existence. And I sometimes dream of being in France, and visiting my friends there, when those of Auteuil are never forgotten.

I send you herewith as a small curiosity some songs and music of American composition, the first production of the kind that has appeared here. I fancy some of the music may suit your taste, as it is simple and pathetic. The poetry of one of the songs pleases me particularly. It is the Vth. I wish you or Mr. Cabenis would translate it, so that it may be sung to the same notes.

I Madame Helvetius.

The gentleman who will have the honor of delivering you this line, is Mr. Gouverneur Morris, formerly a member of Congress, and one of the convention that composed the Federal Constitution. He is much esteemed here by those that know him, and being a friend of mine, I beg leave to recommend him to your civilities, and to M. Marmontels, to whom please to present my respects.

I hope the late troubles in France are nearly over. "T is a country that I dearly love, and in whose prosperity I feel myself deeply interested.

Having now finished my three years' service as President, and not likely to engage in any future public business, I begin to feel myself a freeman, and to enjoy the little leisure that the remnant of life may afford me. Some of this leisure I am, however, employing in writing my own history, which calling past transactions to remembrance makes it seem a little like living one's life over again.

I am ever, my dear friend, with great and sincere esteem, yours most affectionately,

B. FRANKLIN.

MDXXIX

FROM MISS CATHERINE LOUISA SHIPLEY

BOLTON STREET, 24 December, 1788.

MY DEAR FRIEND:-It is a great while since I wrote to you, and still longer since I heard from you; but I have now a particular pleasure in writing to one who had long known and loved the dear parent

man.

I have lost. You will probably, before you receive this, have heard of my father's death; his illness was short and terminated in apoplexy. He was seldom in his perfect senses for the last four days, but such constant calmness and composure could only have attended the deathbed of a truly good How unlike the ideas I had formed to myself of death, which till now I had only seen at a distance, and heard of with terror. The nearer his last moment approached, the more his ideas seemed elevated; and, but for those whom living he had loved with tenderness, and dying he still felt interested for, he showed no regret at leaving this world. I believe his many virtues have called down a blessing on his family, for we have all been supported under this severe affliction beyond what I could have imagined; and though sorrow will for a time get the better of every other sensation, I feel now that the strongest impression left by his death is the desire of imitating his virtues in an humbler sphere of life.

My dear mother's health, I hope, will not have suffered materially; and she has every consolation to be derived from the reflection that for forty-five years it was the study of her life to make the best of husbands happy. He in return has shown that his attention to her ease and comfort did not end with his life. He was happily preserved to us so long as to be able to leave all his family in good circumstances. I fancy my mother, Bessy, and I shall live at Twyford, but at present no place is settled.

I The Bishop of St. Asaph died in London on the 9th of December, 1788.

May I flatter myself that you still feel some affection for the family of your good old friend, and let me have the happiness of hearing it from yourself? I shall request Dr. Price to send this letter. My mother, brother, and sisters beg to be all most kindly remembered. Believe me, dear sir, your faithful and obliged,

CATHERINE LOUISA SHIPLEY.

MDXXX

FROM RICHARD PRICE

HACKNEY, December, 1788.

MY DEAR FRIEND:-I have been desired by Miss Kitty Shipley to convey to you the enclosed letter, and I cannot at present find any way of conveying it except by the packet. It will inform you of the death of one of your warmest friends and the best of bishops. Ever since the American war I have been honored with much of his attention and friendship; and I cannot but mourn the loss which his family, his friends, and the world have sustained. His family are in a state of deep concern, but at the same time inquisitive about you and anxious to receive some information about you. You can be nowhere more beloved or respected.

I have heard with pain that you have been suffering under the gout and stone, two sad maladies; but alas! it is impossible that our bodily frame, as it wears out and approaches to its dissolution, should