HKB
[Footnote 72: A. F. Tytler, in Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Honourable Henry Home of Kames ... (2d ed., Edinburgh, 1814, II, 99, 112), suggests that this letter never reached its destination, but "was in all probability intercepted." Brackets in excerpt from letter to Lord Kames, June 2, 1765, pp. 318-21 above, are the result of Smyth's collation of Tytler's and Sparks's versions.]
[Footnote 73: Sir John Pringle (1707-1782). Physician (student of Albinus and Boerhaave) whose "great work in life was the reform of military medicine and sanitation" (Dictionary of National Biography, XLVI, 386-8). From 1772 to 1778 he was President of the Royal Society. In 1778 he was made one of the eight foreign members of the Academy of Sciences at Paris. Since Pringle was physician to the queen, Parton thinks it probable that he was used by Franklin "to forward to the king such papers and documents as tended to show how loyal to his person and his throne were the vast majority of the American colonists" (op. cit., I, 506). George III, having sided with Dr. Wilson who championed blunt lightning rods, asked Pringle to use his influence to have the Royal Society rescind its opinion in favor of pointed ones. Pringle's answer "was to the effect that duty as well as inclination would always induce him to execute his majesty's wishes to the utmost of his power: but 'Sire,' said he, 'I cannot reverse the laws and operations of nature'" (ibid., II, 217 note).]
[Footnote 74: The full title of Dupont de Nemours's work is Physiocratie, ou constitution naturelle du gouvernement le plus avantageux au genre humain. 2 vols. Leyden and Paris, 1767, 1768. Peter Templeman (1711-1769) was Secretary of the London Society of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce and in 1762 corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris (Dictionary of National Biography, LVI, 53-4). "Ami des hommes" is the Marquis de Mirabeau (1715-1789) who wrote L'Ami des hommes, ou traité de la population. [1756] 5th ed., Hamburg, 1760, 4 vols. The "crowning work" of the Physiocrats is François Quesnay's Tableau économique. Published by the British Economic Association, London, 1894.
Dupont's letter of May 10, 1768, to which Franklin's is an answer, is printed in Writings, V, 153-4. From London (Oct. 2, 1770) Franklin writes to Dupont: "Would to God I could take with me [to America] Messrs. du Pont, du Bourg, and some other French Friends with their good Ladies! I might then, by mixing them with my Friends in Philadelphia, form a little happy Society that would prevent my ever wishing again to visit Europe" (Writings, V, 282). Elision marks in letter of July 28 are Franklin's own.]
[Footnote 75: John Alleyne. See his The Legal Degrees of Marriage Stated and Considered ..., London, 1774. The second edition (London, 1775) includes Franklin's letter to Alleyne, Appendix, pp. 1-2.]
[Footnote 76: Compare To the Printer of the London Public Advertiser (August 25, 1768; Writings, V, 162-5): "And what are we to gain by this war, by which our trade and manufactures are to be ruined, our strength divided and diminished, our debt increased, and our reputation, as a generous nation, and lovers of liberty, given up and lost? Why, we are to convert millions of the King's loyal subjects into rebels, for the sake of establishing a new claimed power in P---- to tax a distant people, whose abilities and circumstances they cannot be acquainted with, who have a constitutional power of taxing themselves; who have never refused to give us voluntarily more than we can ever expect to wrest from them by force; and by our trade with whom we gain millions a year!" (Ibid., 164-5.)]
[Footnote 77: William Hewson (1739-1774). He was married to Miss Stevenson in 1770. Hewson received the Copley medal in 1769 and was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1770. (Dictionary of National Biography, XXVI, 312-3.)]