From Benjamin Franklin to the Conde de Campomanes, 5 June 1784
To the Conde de Campomanes
AL (draft): American Philosophical Society
Passy, June 5. 1784
Sir,
I have received much Instruction and Pleasure in reading your excellent Writings;7 I wish it were in my Power to make you a suitable Return of the same kind. I embrace the Opportunity my much esteemed Friend Mr Carmichael affords me, of sending you a late Collection of some of my occasional Pieces,8 of which, if I should live to get home I hope to publish another Edition much larger more correct & less unworthy of your Acceptance. You are engaged in a great Work, reforming the ancient Habitudes, removing the Prejudices, and promoting the Industry of your Nation.9 You have in the Spanish People good Stuff to work upon; and by a steady Perseverance you will obtain perhaps a Success beyond your Expectation; for it is incredible the Quantity of Good that may be done in a Country by a single Man who will make a Business of it, and not suffer himself to be diverted from that Purpose by different Avocations, Studies or Amusements.—1 There are two Opinions prevalent in Europe, which have mischievous Effects in diminishing national Felicity; the one, That useful Labour is dishonourable; the other that Families may be perpetuated with Estates. In America we have neither of these Prejudices, which is a great Advantage to us. You will see our Ideas respecting the first in a little Piece I send you called Information to those who would remove to America.2 The second is mathematically demonstrable to be an Impossibility under the present Rules of Law & Religion. Since tho’ the Estate may remain entire, the Family is continually dividing. For a Man’s Son is but half of his Family, his Grandson but a fourth, his Great Grandson but an Eighth, the next but a Sixteenth of his Family; and by the same Progression in only nine Generations the present Proprietor’s Part in the then Possessor of the Estate will be but a 512th, supposing the Fidelity of all the succeeding Wives equally certain with that of those now existing:3 too small a Portion methinks to be anxious about, so as to oppose a legal Liberty of breaking Entails and dividing Estates, which would contribute so much to the Prosperity of the Country. With great & sincere Esteem and Respect, and best Wishes for the Success of your patriotic Undertakings, I have the honour to be Sir
M. de Campomanes
7. At the beginning of 1784, Campomanes (XXXIV, 353n) gave William Carmichael two works to be forwarded to BF. Carmichael entrusted them to a Mr. Barry: XLI, 471, 568. An earlier shipment of books from Campomanes had been sent in 1781 through the French consul: XXXV, 487, 641; XXXVI, 465.
8. Political, Miscellaneous, and Philosophical Pieces … (London, 1779): XXXI, 210–18.
9. BF may be referring to Discurso sobre el fomento de la industriapopular (Madrid, 1774) and Discurso sobre la educacion popular de los artesanos y su fomento (Madrid, 1775). The two discourses, which the Council of Castile distributed to public and ecclesiastical officials throughout Spain, advocated the encouragement of small-scale rural manufactures, the abolition of restrictions imposed by craft guilds, the more widespread distribution of land, and general education: Richard Herr, The Eighteenth-Century Revolution in Spain (Princeton, 1959), pp. 50–1, 145, 151; John Lynch, Bourbon Spain, 1700–1808 (Oxford and Cambridge, Mass., 1989), pp. 214–15, 252.
1. BF had previously articulated this idea in a letter to Thomas Brand Hollis of Oct. 5, 1783: XLI, 75. He repeated it in Autobiog., p. 163.
2. XLI, 597–608.
3. For a more elaborate version of this calculation see BF to SB, Jan. 26, 1783 (XLI, 507–9), where he also claimed that the practice of entailing entire estates to the eldest heir was responsible for “all the odious mixture of pride, and beggary, and idleness that have half depopulated and decultivated Spain.”