96 KEPOKT OF THE COMMITTEE 



In noticing the above inaccuracy, it is due to Mr. 

 Fisher to state that he drew up his paper partly 

 from recollection; for in a note, appended to his 

 Communication, he says, "In the preceding sketch 

 there may be several trifling errors, as I have de- 

 pended on Mr. Sparks' Account of the Society and 

 my own recollections. ' ' 



The chief value of Mr. Fisher's Communication is 

 given to it by the letter of Charles Thomson to 

 Franklin, which he was so fortunate as to obtain 

 through William B. Eeed, Esq. This letter sheds 

 much light on the unsettled points of the early his- 

 tory of our Society, and fixes the date of the estab- 

 lishment of the Society-Junto, as has been already 

 mentioned. 



The Committee are of opinion that the account 

 given by Mr. Sparks of the origin of our Society, in 

 the first volume of his Life of Franklin, p. 576, is 

 substantially correct. There is, however, an unim- 

 portant error in the Statement, that, when the two 

 Societies agreed to unite on equal terms, as they 

 did after a renewal of the negotiation of union in 

 November 1768," each, elected "all the members of 

 the other." p. 578. No such mutual election ever 

 took place. 



An inconsistent and inaccurate statement is made 

 in Mr. Sparks' second volume, p. 9, published four 

 years earlier than the first volume, in which the 

 Editor says, "Forty years after its establishment," 



