63 



in England/' Again, it does not appear how the 

 motive of greater caution should induce the Society 

 to introduce Franklin by a new election. If the 

 members were conscious of the fact of his fellowship, 

 they had nothing to do, in view of a probable union 

 with the Philosophical Society, but to insert his name 

 on their exchanged list, as an early member; as they 

 did the name of Charles Thomson, Isaac Paschall, 

 Edmund Physick, William Franklin, Joshua Howell, 

 and William Hopkins, who, if elected at all, must 

 have been elected before the 22nd of September 1758, 

 the date of the earliest extant minutes. But, even 

 conceding that Franklin was a member from an early 

 period of the Society-Junto, though the minutes 

 show no trace of his name as such, would not his 

 renomination for membership be coupled with some 

 remark on the minutes, alluding to his early mem- 

 bership, in order to secure the credit of the fact to 

 the Association? The adoption of Mr. Du Ponceau's 

 views that the election of Franklin was a re-election, 

 makes it necessary to suppose that the American 

 Society, the continuation of the Society-Junto, volun- 

 tarily gave a recent date to Franklin's admission; 

 whereas, by omitting to re-elect, they would have 

 been entitled to place his name among the list of the 

 early members. In reference to a contemplated 

 union with the Philosophical Society, no dispute 

 could have arisen, as to who were or were not mem- 

 bers; as the latter body would not have the right to 



