xviii INTRODUCTION. 



if he afterwards should give any of them to any person (which 

 he could not be understood to promise) such gift is to he 

 considered as the sole effect of his good-will." Some time last 

 summer, after your parting, you wrote me a note, which I 

 cannot at present find, but I think the purport of it was that 

 you had some preparations which you could spare, and were 

 disposed to give me, desiring I would call and look at them ; I 

 did so and accepted them ; I apprehended it to be your suppo- 

 sition in giving them to me, that as I had no use for them, I 

 should probably give them to Mr. Hewson, which I immediately 

 did. Having said this, I must add, in justice likewise to Mr. 

 Hewson, that his conception of the original agreement between 

 you was that he had a right to make such preparations for 

 himself, your business and the common interest of the partner- 

 ship not being neglected. Here you had differed in opinion ; 

 but came to a kind of compromise expressed in a paper that I 

 handed between you, a copy of which I have obtained from 

 Mr. Hewson to send you. 



I am, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant, 



B. FRANKLIN. 



Early in 1774 Hewson had every reason to be gratified with 

 his position. " In viewing the situation of our associate at 

 this period," says Dr. Lettsom, " the most gratifying prospects 

 presented themselves, where genius and industry were rewarded 

 with success, and domestic amities with felicity. The theatre 

 in which he delivered his lectures and expounded his doctrines 

 was crowded with men of science, as well as with pupils, to 

 listen to a youth grown sage by experimental researches." 

 In short, Hewson was now surrounded by the blessings of life. 

 He had a kind and just wife who had borne him two lovely 

 sons; his favorite sister lived with him; his success in teaching 

 was no longer doubtful ; and his practice in surgery and mid- 

 wifery had so much increased as to give him the fairest prospect 

 of providing well for his family. 



But this happiness was soon to end. He was seized with a 

 fever occasioned by a wound received in dissection, which proved 

 fatal on May-day, 1774, after a short illness, in the thirty-fifth 

 year of his age. 



In the second volume of the ' Medical and Philosophical 



