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pleasure which I feel in serving in this capacity is increased by 

 remembering that — long resident in this hospitable country, 

 though without having given up my birthright of nationality 

 beyond the sea — I have also the honour to be a member of the 

 latter of these two bodies. 



The ties between the two are of older date even than the 

 event in your history which you this evening commemorate. 



A third of a century before its present Hall was first occupied 

 by the American Philosophical Society, Franklin, the most illus- 

 trious of its founders, and afterwards its first President, was 

 elected a Fellow of the Eoyal Society, which three years be- 

 fore had awarded him the Copley Medal in recognition of the 

 importance of his electrical researches, and for more than 

 twenty years the volumes of the Philosophical Transactions 

 record, at no infrequent intervals, communications made either 

 by him or through him on scientific subjects. 



Even through the seven long years of war which ended in 

 separating the American colonies from the mother country, 

 the name of Benjamin Franklin annually appears in the " Home 

 List" of Fellows, and so continues afterwards until his death. 

 In a letter to Mr. Benjamin Vaughan, of London, dated 2d of 

 November, 1789, Franklin says: "I have not received the 

 Philosophical Transactions for the two or three last years. 

 They are usually laid by for me at the Society's House, with 

 my name upon them, and remain there until called for. I 

 shall be much obliged to you, if you can conveniently take 

 them up and send them to me " — thus showing his continued 

 interest in the work of the society but a few months before his 

 death. 



On the other hand, the President of the Royal Society in 

 1789, and in all for forty-one years, a longer tenure of the of- 

 fice than that of any other President, was Sir Joseph Banks, 



