Benjamin Franklin | "Peace is the only Ingredient wanting to my Felicity"

Benjamin Franklin

Autograph letter signed (“BFranklin”) to Mary “Polly” Stevenson Hewson (“My dear dear Friend”), 2 pages (228 x 183 mm) on a leaf of laid paper (watermarked posthorn GR), Passy, 13 April 1782, a warm letter on domestic topics, that also looks forward to seeing “Peace & Good Will restored between our Countries,” reception docket in left margin of verso “Passy April 13—82.” Half red morocco folding-case gilt, chemise.

In the midst of his residence at the Hôtel de Valentinois, Passy, while American Minister to France, Franklin sends an affectionate letter to Mary “Polly” Hewson. “I received your kind Letter of the 23d of December. I rejoice always to hear of your & your good Mother’s Welfare, tho’ I can write but Seldom, safe Opportunities are Scarce.”

Franklin renews an earlier invitation that Hewson visit him in Passy with her mother and children: “Looking over some old Papers I find the rough Draft of a Letter which I wrote to you 15 Months ago, and which probably miscarried, or your Answer miscarried, as I never receiv’d any. I enclose it, as the Spring is coming on and the same Proposition will now again be in Season and easily executed if you should approve of it.” Franklin was wise to include his draft, because the original of his earlier letter, 10 January 1780, evidently never reached London and Polly would have had no idea of what the “Proposition” entailed.

Still thinking of a reunion in France, Franklin inquires about John Viny and Joseph Jacobs, partners in a wheelwright and carriage-building firm who had worked with Franklin to develop a new method of making wheels in one piece. “You mention Mr. Viny’s being with you. What is his present Situation? I think he might do well with his Wheel-Business in this Country. By your Newspapers Jacob [sic] seems to have taken it to himself. Could he not make up a good Coach with the latest Useful improvements, & bring you all in it. It would serve here as a Specimen of his Abilities, if he chose to stay; or would sell well if he chose to return.” He next commiserates with Mrs. Stevenson about the health consequences of growing older: “I hope Your Mother has got over her Lowness of Spirits about the Dropsey. It is common for aged People to have at times swell’d Ancles towards Evening; but it is a temporary Disorder, which goes off of itself, & has no Consequences.— My tender Love to her.”

Benjamin Franklin Bache, Franklin’s twelve-year-old grandson, was at the time attending school in Geneva, and his grandfather requests Hewson to send the books that he arranged for her to purchase to him there: “If you have an Opportunity of sending to Geneva, I like well enough your sending the Books thither for my Grandson, who goes on well there.—” (Franklin had earlier suggested that she use a smallish amount of money that she owed him—about £5—to purchase duplicate sets of appropriate books for his grandson and her son William, Franklin’s godson, who was the same age). Perhaps referencing a running joke that the young Bache would one day wed Hewson’s daughter Elizabeth, Franklin endorses not dressing the girl too soon in mature undergarments, “You do well to keep my Grandaughter without Stays. God bless her, and all of you.—”

In its conclusion, the letter transcends familial themes as Franklin thoughtfully reflects on the unsettled period between Cornwallis’s surrender at Yorktown and signing of the Treaty of Paris: “You may imagine that I begin to grow happy in my Prospects. I should be quite so, if I could see Peace & Good Will restored between our Countries; for I enjoy Health, Competence, Friends & Reputation; Peace is the only Ingredient wanting to my Felicity. Adieu, my dear Friend, and believe me ever Yours most affectionately.”

REFERENCES

Papers of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Cohn, 37:144–145 (not locating the original, text [surprisingly accurate] from Stan V. Henkels, Catalogue No. 1262)

PROVENANCE

Stan V. Henkels, Catalogue No. 1262, The Great Autograph Sale, 1 July 1920, lot 31 (undesignated consignor) — American Art Association, 22 April 1924, lot 295 (undesignated consignor) — “A Gentleman” (Christie’s New York, 4 December 2018, lot 141)