ing it, however satisfied they may be with your services. But as to the continuance of what you may enjoy, or of something as valuable in the service of the congress, I think you may make yourself easy, for that your appointment seems more likely to be increased than diminished, though it does not belong to me to promise any thing.

Mr. Laurens was to sail three days after Mr. Searle, who begins to fear he must be lost, as it was a small vessel he intended to embark in.-He was bound directly to Holland.

I enclose some extracts of letters from two French officers of distinction in the army of M. de Rochambeau, which are pleasing, as they mark the good intelligence that subsists between the troops, contrary to the reports circulated by the English.

They will do perhaps for your Leyden Gazette.

With great esteem and affection I am ever, &c.
B. FRANKLIN.

To the same.

Passy, October 9, 1780.

DEAR SIR,

I RECEIVED yours of 29th September, and 3d October. It is a very good addition you made to your memoir for the ministers of Russia and Sweden. I am glad to find you are again on such good terms with the ambassador, as to be invited to his comedy. I doubt not of your continuing to cultivate that good understanding.—I like much your insertions in the Gazettes. Such things have good effects.

Your information relative to the transactions at Petersburg, and in Denmark, are very interesting, and afforded me a good deal of satisfaction; particularly the former.-Mr. Searle will have the pleasure of seeing you. I recommend him warmly to your civilities. He is much your friend, and will advise Mr. Laurens to make you his secretary, which I hope you will accept. I have given it as my opinion, that Mr. L. can no where find one better qualified, or more deserving. The choice is left to that minister, and he is empowered to give a salary of £.500 sterling a year.

I am in pain on account of his not being yet arrived; but hope you will see him soon.-I request you would find means to introduce Mr. Searle to the Portuguese ambassador.-Pray consider the enclosed papers, and after advising with your friend, give me your opinion as to the manner of the application, to the states general, whether I should make it through their ambassador, or directly with a letter to the Grand Pensionary, or in what other manner. You know we wrote to him formerly and received no answer. With great esteem, I am, &c.

B. FRANKLIN. You say nothing of Mr. Adams? How do you stand with him? What is he doing?

DEAR SIR,

To the same.

Passy, 6th November, 1780.

My grand-father has been for a long time past laid up with the gout, and is SO still. He directs me to inform you, that he has received several of your letters, which he has not as yet been able to answer; he hopes however that in a few days he shall be able to do it, as his sufferings are much diminished.

You have heard I suppose of the arrival at Brest of M. de Guichen. I am, as ever, my dear Sir, &c.

W. T. FRANKLIN.

To Dr. Franklin.

Extract of a letter from Newport, Rhode Island, dated October 10, 1780.

BY this ship you will receive an account of the treason and apostacy of one of our greatest generals (who went over from us to the enemy 25th September last) and the happy detection of it before the treason was carried into execution. General Arnold has buried all his military glory, and sent his name down in history execrated with contempt and infamy. He will be despised not only by us in the United States, but by all the nations of Europe and in all future ages. There is reason to believe that he me

ditated with the reduction of West-Point on the 27th September, the betraying at the same time of general Washington and the minister of France into the hands of the enemy; for his excellency the chevalier de la Luzerne told me that passing through West-Point on his way hither on the 24th, the day before the detection, general Arnold importuned him even to indecency to tarry and rest there four or five days. And Arnold also knew that general Washington would meet there about the same time on his return from an interview with the French officers at Hartford. General Arnold is a loss. But America is so fertile in patriots, that we can afford to lose a capital patriot or two every year without any essential injury to the glorious cause of liberty and independence. The greatest injury he can do us will be in information. However the present state of the American army is now so good, as that the most thorough knowledge of it will rather do us benefit that an injury. The seasonable execution of major Andre (the seducer) adjutant-general of the British army, on the 20 instant, will probably deter such adventurers for the future.

Congress and the assemblies through the states continue firm and unshaken; and they have a cordial support in the union of the main body of the people at large, notwithstanding the efforts of tories and governmental connexions intermixt in all parts, whose Sysiphean labors only pull ruin upon themselves.

The storm still blows heavy. But our ship will ride it through. With joy we look forward, and with undoubting assurance anticipate the sweets and the final triumph of American liberty.

Dr. Jebb to Dr. Franklin.

London, October 11, 1780. THE consciousness of a sincere desire to promote the interests of human kind, as far as my confined abilities and humble station will permit, induce me to give you my sentiments upon a subject, which, I have no doubt, is ever present to your thoughts. Excuse the presumption; the

intention is honest; let this consideration compensate for the want of every other qualification. Independent in my principles and unconnected with party, I speak those sentiments, which circumstances appear to me to dictate, and I speak them without reserve.

A federal union between America and England, upon the broad basis of mutual convenience, appears to me a point of so much consequence, that I cannot conceive, in the present circumstances, how either country can fully enjoy the means of happiness, which indulgent Providence has poured forth on each with so much profusion, unless such union immediately take place.

I also am persuaded, that the present war, between this country and the house of Bourbon, is of so peculiar a kind, that no solid reason can be assigned for its continuance, a moment after America and England shall cordially agree upon a termination of their dispute.

It is obviously for the advantage of England, that America should employ her mannfacturers, and that her fleets should have free access to the shores, from whence she derived those various sources of strength, which enabled her so long to reign the unrivalled mistress of the deep.

On the other hand, the rising states of America, wisely intent upon such measures, as tend to increase their population, and perfect those forms of civil polity, which, at the same time that they promise internal security and happiness, will probably establish an asylum for the rest of mankind, must derive considerable advantage from the free importation of those articles, which, in their present circumstances, they cannot with convenience manufacture themselves.

And why should England envy to France and Spain, nay, to all the world, that portion of trade, whatever that be, which suits the circumstances of each power; and from which all deriving the sources of rational enjoyment would, perhaps, remain in the same ratio as at present, with respect to relative strength?

How strange therefore to persevere in an appeal to arms,

Rr

when mutual interest, and the ties of blood; the sameness of religion, language, and laws, so loudly call for peace! We might reasonably have hoped, that in the course of eighteen centuries the gospel of peace might have suggested to us a more rational mode of terminating our contests.

As it never was the interest, so neither was it in fact the inclination of the English people, to break the bonds of union with their American brethren, until seduced thereto by the arts of designing men. Their motives I leave to themselves they will be revealed in their day.

Had the English people been equally represented in an annual parliament, that parliament, acting in strict conformity with the interests of its constituents, would have seen that every consideration required, that the bond of union between the countries should be preserved inviolate.—It would have perceived, that those restrictions, which were the offspring of the occasion, or suggested by narrow systems of policy, ought to have been removed, the moment that they occasioned the first murmur of complaint.-But unhappily for England, the love of arbitrary sway so far operated upon those, who most are exposed to its temptations, as to engage them in the desperate measure of deluding one half of the empire, in order to subjugate the

rést.

The period of this delusion, however, is now rapidly advancing to its termination.-Calamity has brought home the perception of the consequences, attendant upon national error, to every private breast.—It has taught us wisdomand has begun to humanise our hearts.-The many are now ready to exclaim, in the expressive language of scripture, "We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us, and we “would not hear; therefore is this evil come upon us.”

But although the people are disposed to accommodation, a mighty power continues to oppose itself to the general wish.

And were the aristocratic strength of our constitution to prevail in its conflict with that power, I am far from being