To the Printers of the PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE. GENTLEMEN, No Explanation of the Devices on the Continental Bills of Credit having yet appeared, I send you the following Account of them, with my Conjectures of their Meaning. CLERICUS. An emblematical device, when rightly formed, is said to consist of two parts, a body and a mind,…
All posts in The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, Vol III: London
Resolutions on Trade Submitted to Congress
Resolved, That from and after the 20th of July 1776 being one full Year after the Day appointed by a late Act of the Parliament of Great Britain for restraining the Trade of the Confederate Colonies, all the Custom-Houses therein (if the said Act be not first repealed) shall be shut up, and all the…
Proposed Articles of Confederation
Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union, entred into by the Delegates of the several Colonies of New Hampshire &c. in general Congress met at Philadelphia, May 10. 1775. Art. I. The Name of the Confederacy shall henceforth be The United Colonies of North America. Art. II. The said United Colonies hereby severally enter into a…
This is a Harder Nut to Crack than They Imagined
To [Joseph Priestley] Dear Friend, Philadelphia, 7th July, 1775. The Congress met at a time when all minds were so exasperated by the perfidy of General Gage, and his attack on the country people, that propositions of attempting an accommodation were not much relished; and it has been with difficulty that we have carried another…
You Are Now My Enemy
To William Strahan Mr. Strahan, Philada. July 5. 1775 You are a Member of Parliament, and one of that Majority which has doomed my Country to Destruction. You have begun to burn our Towns, and murder our People. Look upon your Hands! They are stained with the Blood of your Relations! You and I were…