My dear Mr. Darwin

It was very kind of you to send me the interesting extract from your Father’s memoranda respecting Franklin, and I thank you heartily for it and for your note.¹ That Franklin had a good opinion of Louis XVI. was well known. He speaks of him in one of his published letters as “that young and virtuous prince”, but I do not think there is anywhere in his published correspondence so full and direct an expression of the regard in which he held the king as that preserved by your Father.²

Your recollections of your Father’s report of the manners of Franklin’s grandsons to their grandfather, and of his bearing toward them, are also very interesting as illustrative of his character.³

These grandsons were mere boys at the time that Franklin took them with him to France. The elder of them was William Temple Franklin, who was 17 or 18 years old at this time; the younger was Benjamin Franklin Bache, a child of seven. In 1784 William Temple Franklin was his grandfather’s secretary, and Franklin in one of his letters of that year speaks highly of him. It is by no means unlikely, however, that the young man, who became very much of a Frenchman and lived and died in France, was tried by the old man’s simplicity and indifference to the exigencies of fashion.

I find in Sparks’s edition of the Works of Franklin, a note from your grandfather to him, which, as you may not have a copy of it, and as it is an indication of their very friendly relations, I transcribe for you.⁴

In a footnote appended to it Mr. Sparks says: “An acquaintance of long standing, and a correspondence on philosophical subjects, seem to have subsisted between Dr. Franklin and Dr. Darwin, but none of Franklin’s letters to Darwin have come within my researches. The only record of their intercourse contained in Miss Seward’s ‘Memoirs of Dr. Darwin’ is the following anecdote.” He then cites the story of Dr. Darwin’s directing a letter to Dr. Franklin, America, and his saying that “he felt inclined to make a still more flattering superscription; Dr Franklin, the World.’” Seward’s Memoirs of Dr. Darwin, p.152⁵

If among Dr. Darwin’s papers you have found any of Dr. Franklin’s letters of which you would be willing to let me have a copy, I should be greatly obliged to you for them; or it would be still better if you would publish them. Everything relating to Franklin is of interest. His reputation does not diminish. Indeed he becomes more and more conspicuous as the most vigorous original thinker that America has yet produced.

We have all been very glad to hear of your son William’s improvement. I trust that he will soon feel no remaining ill-effects from his fall.⁶

Your note gives me real pleasure as an indication, which I hope is to be trusted, of your being in good condition.

I beg you to offer my best respects and kindest regards (and in this message my sister⁷ desires to join with me) to Mrs. Darwin,—and to believe me, with the highest respect | Most sincerely Yours | C. E. Norton.

I wish you would kindly give my best remembrances to Mrs. Lichfield, Miss Darwin, & your sons.⁸