From Benjamin Franklin to William Strahan, 4 June 1753
To William Strahan
ALS: New York Public Library
Philada. June 4. 1753
Sir
The above is a Copy of mine per Reeves.6 This is only to request you would send me here, the Quarto Abridgement of the Philosophical Transactions, except the first five Volumes which I have.7 Send me also Fielding’s Proposals for employing the Poor.8 In haste, I am Yours ut supra9
B Franklin
All well. Mr. Hall out of town. The 5 Vols of Transactions I have, are abridg’d by Lowthorp and Jones.
Addressed: To Mr William Strahan Printer London Per the Carolina Capt. Mesnard
6. See above, p. 487.
7. John Lowthorp abridged the Phil. Trans. to 1700 in 3 volumes quarto, 1705; Henry Jones continued the work to 1720 in 2 volumes quarto, 1721. In 1731 there was a fourth edition of the first three volumes and a second edition of the other two. BF is ordering volumes VI-IX, prepared by John Eames and John Martyn, 1734–47.
8. Henry Fielding, A Proposal for making Effectual Provision for the Poor (London, 1753).
9. “Yours as above,” that is, “Your obliged humble Servant”—the complimentary close of his letter of May 9, the duplicate of which was on the same sheet.