The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Volume 1. Бенджамин Франклин

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      William Temple Franklin was then living in London with his father. That he should consider the interests of his father, who was living and whose declining years might be made miserable by this publication, rather than the fame of his grandfather, who was dead and beyond the reach of human praise or criticism, is not strange or certainly is less strange, though less loyal to his grandfather’s memory, than the lack of such forbearance would have been.

      William Temple was doubtless justified in denying the imputation that he had sold his grandfather’s papers to the British government, or that he had entertained any negotiations with them for the suppression of them.

      The £7000, if he ever received any such sum, may have been the proceeds of some job or contract which his father, towards whom the government no doubt felt kindly, may have procured, and in which he may have given his son an interest to indemnify him for deferring his publication. This, of course, is only conjecture, but it is far more probable than that the British government, several years after the peace, should have paid that or any other sum to stifle the utterances of any rebel American.

      William Temple Franklin’s edition finally appeared in London in 1817-1819 in three quarto volumes, and, by an arrangement with Mr. William Duane, appeared in Philadelphia in six octavo volumes. The Philadelphia edition includes some papers which are not to be found in the London edition. The late Henry Stevens reports Mr. Colburn, who was the publisher of the London edition, to have said that there remained material for as many more volumes, but that he was unwilling to take the risk of more than three quarto volumes until they had been marketed, and that William Temple Franklin considered these as only the first instalment of his publication. The work “went off tolerably well,” said Mr. Colburn, but not sufficiently well, it appeared, to warrant him in risking the contemplated second instalment.

      A new and yet more complete edition of Franklin’s works appeared in Boston in 1836-1842, edited by Dr. Jared Sparks in ten volumes, 8vo. It professed to include every thing of Franklin’s that had already been in print and some 460 pieces which had never been printed. This edition was swollen considerably by letters of more or less interest addressed to Franklin, and by other papers attributed to Franklin which have proved not to be from his pen, but, notwithstanding, it was the most meritorious and thorough specimen of book-editing which, up to that time, had been executed in this country. Mr. Sparks’s notions of the editorial prerogative were somewhat latitudinarian, but he never incurred the reproach of a lack of diligence or of loyalty to his heroes. Of the supplementary papers not used by William Temple Franklin in the edition of 1817-1819, Mr. Sparks did not find any trace until his edition had gone to press, or had already attained the limits prescribed to it by the conditions of the book market of that day. The fate of those supplementary papers has since been disclosed. When William Temple had finished his editorial task, he put the original MSS. back into their chest and stored them with the bankers Herries, Farquhar, & Co., No. 16 St. James Street, ^{Ref. 008} the street in which he had been lodging; went to France, married, and, in 1823, died in Paris intestate. His widow administered upon the estate, and on the 27th of September, 1823, removed from the bankers’ the old chest containing the Franklin MSS.

      We learn nothing further of these papers until 1840, when they were found “loosely bundled up” on the top shelf of a tailor’s shop in London where William Temple had lodged, and where the chest had probably been left by Mrs. Franklin or her agent after discovering that it contained nothing but old papers. It is supposed the papers were taken out of the chest and shelved by some one who had more need of the chest than of its contents. The finder of these MSS. had been a fellow-lodger of Franklin and held some place under government. By whatever title he acquired them he held them for ten or eleven years, offering them from time to time for sale without success. They were declined by the British Museum and by Lord Palmerston also, doubtless under the impression which the proprietor of them did not know enough to correct—that every thing of any value in the collection was already in print. In 1851, this gentleman brought them to the notice of Abbott Lawrence, then our minister at the English court, and was by him referred to Mr. Henry Stevens, a noted American bibliophile then residing in London, who became their purchaser. In December, 1881, these papers were offered for sale by the executors of the late Mr. Charles Whittingham, to whom they had been pledged many years previous for advances, and were bought by Congress for the library of the State Department at Washington for £7000.

      By the courtesy and generous co-operation of the Secretary of State I have been allowed free access to that collection. I have so far profited by this privilege as to secure copies of every thing in the collection which seemed entitled to a place in any edition of Franklin’s writings, and without which no edition could any longer pretend to be complete With the material which I found there I have been enabled to fill several considerable gaps in the history of Franklin’s career while minister to France, and to supply not a little information about other epochs of his life, which, if not calculated to change or materially modify the impression of him which his already printed writings have left on mankind, will be found full of interest, and, like every thing he wrote, possessing a unique literary value.

      I have also thought it prudent to have such portions of Mr. Sparks’ edition of Franklin’s works as were not printed in Franklin’s lifetime collated with such of their originals as were found in the new collection at the State Department, to see whether that distinguished historian’s somewhat peculiar theories of editorial duty might not have occasionally led him to take some liberties with the text of his author where he thought he could improve it. The result of this collation was in the main satisfactory. The changes were by no means inconsiderable in number, but many were merely suppressions or modifications of the formal parts of letters, many were corrections of obvious mistakes or omissions made in transcribing for the printer, while others were mere changes and generally improvements in punctuation. But, on the other hand, the new collation disclosed numerous omissions of parts of documents and many alterations of the text which can only be attributed to gross carelessness on the part of the proof-reader or to the use of defective copy. A few illustrations will suffice to show the character of the errors we have endeavored to correct.

      Sparks, viii., p. 68: “But if it be true as Krautz, I think and some other historians tell us.”

      The MS.: “But if it be true as Krautz and I think, other historians tell us.”

      In Sparks, Franklin is represented as doubtful about Krautz but not about other historians, whereas Franklin was doubtful only about other historians.

      Sparks, viii., p. 162: “I see clearly we are on the high road to mutual family hatred and detestation.”

      Sparks, same vol. and page: “We know that you may do us a great deal of mischief and are determined to bear it patiently as long as we can.”

      MS.: “I see clearly we are on the high road to mutual enmity hatred and detestation.”

      MS.: “We know you may do us a great deal of mischief but we are determined to bear it patiently as long as we can.”

      Writing to Dr. Richard Price, viii., p. 417, the italicized part of the following sentence is omitted.

       It gave me great pleasure to understand you continue well. Take care of yourself. Your life is a valuable one.

      Sparks, ix., p. 67: “But as Mr. Ferdinand Grand, banker at Paris and his broker Sir George Grand, banker in Holland.”

      Sir George was the brother, not the broker, of Ferdinand.

      Sparks, ix., p. 253: “That the cruel injuries constantly done us by burning our towns,” etc. Franklin wrote wantonly instead of constantly.

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