676 Appendix. 



officers half-pay (with whfch also I find they will all have per- 

 manent rank in America) affords me a very sincere satisfaction. 



" Your zeal and assiduity on this occasion appear to have 

 been such as your friends might have expected, and I am sensi- 

 ble of your attention to me in writing so fully on the subject. 

 The American officers have in my opinion so fair a claim to 

 half-pay, that I hope the grant will finally be made for the full 

 establishment for their several regiments without the least ex- 

 ception. 



" Your promotion to the rank of Colonel is notified to me 

 from the Minister, but as he has given me no instructions re- 

 specting Major Murray, you must be sensible that I cannot take 

 it upon myself to give him an appointment which would be con- 

 sidered as a grievance by all the elder majors in the Provincial 

 Line. 



" I am, &c." 



(See page 585.) 



The following charming letter from Dr. Franklin to 

 Madame Lavoisier, while her first husband was still 

 living, shows how pleasant had been his relations with 

 that lady: 



"PHILADELPHIA, October 23, 1788. 



" I have a long time been disabled from writing to my dear 

 friend by a severe fit of the gout, or I should sooner have 

 returned my thanks for her very kind present of the portrait 

 which she has herself done me the honor to make of me. It is 

 allowed, by those who have seen it, to have great merit as a 

 picture in every respect ; but what particularly endears it to me 

 is the hand that drew it. Our English enemies, when they 

 were in possession of this city and my house, made a prisoner 

 of my portrait and carried it off with them, leaving that of its 

 companion, my wife, by itself, a kind of widow. You have 



