PREFACE. 



Dr. Franklin seems to have contracted, early in life, the habit of 

 preserving his correspondence, drafts of letters, and memoranda of all 

 kinds, and the mass w^hich he accumulated during his long and active 

 career was very large. In his last Will, dated July 17th, 1788, he 

 bequeathed his manuscripts and papers to his grandson, William Temple 

 Franklin, w^ho used them in the preparation of " The Life and Writ- 

 ings " of his grandfather. These manuscripts and papers William 

 Temple Franklin stored at Champlost, the country seat near Philadel- 

 phia, of his friend George Fox. A portion of them he subsequently took 

 to Europe for use in the completion of this work which he published in 

 six volumes in London in 181 7-1 81 8. 



William Temple Franklin died in Paris on May 25th, 1823, and 

 by his Will gave the papers and manuscripts which he had inherited 

 from his grandfather to George Fox, and upon the death of the latter, 

 his children, Charles P. Fox and Mary Fox, in July, 1840, deposited 

 the collection with The American Philosophical Society, and later, on 

 September 17th of the same year, formally gave them to this Society. 



In the transfer there was overlooked a small portion of the Franklin 

 papers which had become mixed with the Fox family papers also 

 stored in the loft of the stable at Champlost. About twenty-two years 

 later, when this loft was being cleaned out and the papers therein were 

 being carted off to the paper mill, a small lot of them, most of which had 

 originally belonged to the Franklin collection, was rescued from destruc- 

 tion by Mrs. Holbrook, a friend and at the time house-guest of Miss 

 Fox, to whom they were then given. In 1903 these were purchased 

 from her descendants by friends of the University of Pennsylvania, 

 and presented to its Library. 



Before making the gift to the American Philosophical Society, up- 

 wards of one hundred letters, for the most part to Dr. Franklin from 

 members of his family, were separated from the collection and pre- 

 sented by Charles P. Fox to Dr. Franklin Bache, a great-grandson 

 of Dr. Franklin, and are now in possession of his son. Dr. Thomas 

 Hewson Bache. Most of these were printed by William Duane in 

 an octavo volume of one hundred and ninety-five pages, published in 

 New York in 1859, by C. Benjamin Richardson. 



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