I wrote to you a note some weaks ago to accompany the request of mister Veinbrenner which you allready had granted. His commissionary is allready gone to Hamburg and will set out with the first vessel for Philadelphia, waiting only for the introductory letter you promised. Your last was dated May 16th, of which I first recieved the copy. Reciev my thanks for the medal, which was much and justly admired. I recieved this days a letter from mister Le Roy dated juin 9th by which I am rejoiced to see you continue in good health. However strongly the printer of my book Didot le jeun, promis’d to work close at the printing of it, he does not perform it; so that it may possibly become a posthumus work. This is vexing in the utmost. The German translation of it is allready nearly sold out. Mister le Begue says he does what he can to press the printer. I thank you for the leave of dedicating it to you, of which I am proud. I doe not think it probable that one of my letters to you could have been lost, as it went thro the hands of Mister Branthan. I think reather you may have forgot it or misled. I have red an extract of our common Friend Sir john Pringle’s biography by Dr. Kipi his theological Friend who contributed the most to fix his anxious mind upon Socinianisme as being in his opinion the most rational and the only good religion. His character seems to me drawn in a masterly way. You and I are good judges of it. In collecting what philosophical anecdotes I possess of you, I find it difficult, how to comply with your request of not mentioning your name in the paper you adressed to me on father Barletti’s work. I can not, consistent with the rules of equity and veracity, give it for my own, and even less for a performance of an anonimous author; for than your name would be equaly gessed, and it would have some appearance of mystery. As it is written in a Very polite, and at the same time very modest stile it can’t hurt anyone, and therefore you would oblige me to withdraw your request and give me leave to publish it as it is. The notes, which I will add to it, will be what I wrote to you about my perfectly imitating the effects of the lightning at Cremona by a strong electrical explosion. Father Barletti him self will recieve it with pleasur. It will give him a new specimen of putting explications of natural phenomena in a clear and obvious light. He is very far from being a clearheaded philosopher. All his writing are nearly as dark, diffuse and perplexed as those of Father Beccaria. They vex and tire the readers mind, without clearing up the difficulty. I have observed, that those who extol the most their works, had in reality not had the courage to goe thro them. If you should remember some particularities about the circonstances and consequences of the two electrical explosions, by which you was hit by accident, and struck to the ground, you would oblige me to communicate them to me, as I doe not find them in your works. As the effect of a similar stroke by which I was struk was followed by some remarcabel particularities. I should like to compare them which [with] those you have experienced. The yarr [jar] by which I was Struck, contained about 32 pints. It was nearly fully charged when I recived the explosion from the conductor supported by that jarr. The flash enter’d the corner point of my hat. Then, it entred my forehead and passed thro the left hand arm, in which I held the chaine communicating with attached to the outward Coating of the yarr. I neither saw, heared nor [sensed?] the explosion stroke by which I was Struck down. I lost all my senses, memory, understanding and even sound judgment. My first sensation was a peine on the forehead. The first object I saw was the post of a door. I combined the two ideas togeather and thought I had hurt my head against the horizontal piece of timber supported by the pos[ts?], which was impossib[le] as the door was wide and high. After having answered unadequately to some questio[ns] which were asked me by the people in the room, I determined to go home. But I wa[s] some what surprised that, though the accident happened in a hous in the same street where I lodged, yet I was more than two minutes considering whether, to go hom[e,] I must go to the right or to the left hand. Having found my lodgings, and consider[ed?] that my memory was become very weak, I thought it prudent to put down in writing th[e] history of the case. I placed the paper before me, dipt the pen in the ink, but when I applyed it to the paper, I found I had entirely forgotten the art of writing and reading and did not know more what to doe with the pen, than a savage, who never knew there was such an art found out. This Struck me with terror, as I feared I should remain for ever an idiot. I thaught it prudent to go to bed. I slept tolerably well and when I awaked next morning I felt found still the peine on the forehead and found a red spot on the place: but my mental faculties were at that time not only returned, but I feld the most lively joye in finding, as I thought at the time, my judgment infinitely more acute. It did seem to me I saw much clearer the difficulties of every thing, and what did formerly seem to me difficult to comprehend, was now become of an easy solution. I found moreover a liveliness in my whole frame, which I never had observed before. This experiment, made by accident, on my self, and of which I gave you at the time an account, has induced me to advise som[e] of the London mad-Doctors, as Dr Brook, to try a similar experiment o[n] mad men, thinking that, as I found in my self, my mental faculties impro[ved] and as the world well knows, that your mental faculties, if not improved [by] the two strooks you received, were certainly not hurt by them, it might perhaps be [?] a remedie to restore the mental faculties when lost: but I could never persuade any one to.
I should like to know allso, whether the clok of your invention, showing hours, minutes and seconds by three weels only, has been publish’d as your invention, and whether you think it my [may] be publish’d now. If you give me leave, I will add to it the idea mister whitehurst gave us at Derby, who to prevent the pendulum becoming shorter condensing by cold and longer by heat by suspending supporting the superior flexible part of it from an iron rod standing behind it, which, by [expanding] or contracting in the same ratio as the pendulum, carries it higher or lower [in?] proportion. I get it executed here. If you could furnish me with some farther reflexions on this head [i]t would be a satisfaction to me and an advantage to the public.
What doe you think of publishing allso, the philosophical curiosity of the globe, [fo]rmed as an earth globe, swimming in a large glass globe filled with water and aether, and having two magnets within it and one in the pedestal to keep the direction of the globe in the center and preventing it from swimming to the sides? I remember I heard you more than once speak of an easy why [way] of finding the different [gr]avity of bodies in the time of the conjunction of different planetes or of the sun and moon, by means of a spiral elastic wire, at whose end should hang a whight. I do not recollect understand enough the manner of constructing such [a?] contrivance to be able to describe it in a clear way. Would you be soo good as to furnish me with some hints about it?
You have certainly concieved some more new ideas regarding Nature’s laws, which it would be a pity to be lost to philosophy. It is not [as?] common in philosophers to possess an invention genius. Those who have it live seldom to an age, in which the judgment has become to its full vigour. You live to such an age point. It would be a pity your ideas should sink with you into the grave. If some of them should return to your mind, pray, make a note of them.
If to the above articles, and Such as you may still furnish me with, I could add those reflexions you begun to work at, about chimneys; and some few, which I may recollect, or I may find in your lettres, I could present the public with a set of usefull notions from a man, whose memory will be everlasting, and I would have some share in the merit of having saved indicated them from being lost. Pray, in some leasure hours think, subtracted from the whimsical political world, take now and than a trip again into the world of Nature. [?] the one you served your country, but in the other mankind. I wish for nothing more than to see you once more. I want only, to come over, more courrage than I have, to ask leave from my imp. [imperial] master. If we goe here to war with the Turks, we will very likely have soon the Plague here. The foreign ministers and many people are alarm’d at the danger of this dreadfull calamity; the more so, as it is ordred no more to open at the frontiers the letters coming form the easteren countries or to Smoak them; as some folks have inspired our [illegible] with a belive, that the plague can not be conveyed by letter; for, say they if [it] was possible, all other nations, to which such letters are dayly conveyed without being Smoaked and purifyed, would constantely have the plague among them. Some [illegible] would perhaps suspect those men, who are the advisers of so extraordinary a resolut[ion] in the very time of the plague raging all over the turkish dominion, to be gain[ed] by the Ottomans, whose policy it has allways be to send the plague to their enn[emies].
One may now soon exspect, that the quarantaine, till now so strictely observed, and wi[th so?] good a succes, will soon be taken away allso, as it would be strong to belive, [illegible] a lettre, written by a man labouring under the plage or of having its infection abo[lished?] could not convey the contagion, and to apprehend at the same time that a [illegible] man coming thro the open air from Constantinople to Vienna or Belgrade, c[ould?] still keep the poison about him without being himself affected by it. [illegible] believe that a lettre sealed up can convey no contagion, seems to me as extravagant extrardinary as would be [illegible] that, among all the wearing appearel of a traveller, his nightcap only must neccesa[rily] be excepted of conveying this contagion. Not long ago my brother in law recieved [illegible] from the Archipel written by a traveller labouring actualy under the plague but be[ing?] nearly out of danger. He should have shuddred in reading it, if the lettre had not be[en] opened at the frontiers (as it has been an invariable custom since a long while) and [word missing?] roughly perfumed; which is done by burning brimstone, juniper wood, myrrha, su[?] &c. By the want of those salutary precautions, the plague used to break [out?] at least every 10 years here or there in Europe in the former centuries. Whole Eu[rope?] now again in the Same danger, as allmost all the correspondence by letters from Alappe, Egyp[t] and all those countries, which are so often infacted by the pestilential contag[ion] goes over Belgrade. I find now written upon all letters these dreadfull wor[ds:?] netto di fori, sporco di dentro, which strikes every one with terror, who reciev[es] them. Many people who are much about the Souverain, approuve of th[is?] extrordinary and erroneous opinion, thinking probably that nothing pleases [illegible] a great man than to approuve of his opinions. If the plague will thus be carried into the French dominion, your American brethren may take by times salutary meas[ures?] to prevent this calamity passing the ocean. If you should hear speaking ab[out] this affaire, as you may likely, when the terror will spread thro Europe, I begg that my [illegible] be not mentioned. Writers on the plage give incontestable proovs that the plage has [been?] communicated by parcels, boxes, and letters sealed or shut up during several years. [illegible] contagion of the small pox is of the same nature.
Some weaks ago, Lady Dowager Penn wrote a lamentable letter to the Princess dowager of Lichtenstein (who has allways shown me civilities and friendship) in which she complains of the hardship of atending her husband’s possessions confiscated; and I belive she has endeavoured to find here some high protection or recommendation to mitigate her fate. If the Emperour’s protection or recommendation has been sollicited, I should find it not unreasonable; but you will be surprised, that the Princess of Lichtenstein applyed to me, asking me in the most pressing way my endeavours, to obtain from you a recommendation in behalf of Lady Penn. I told her it was unbecoming in me to trouble you about such thing, and that even you yourself could be of little use in the case, as those confiscations are made by the legislature in the country itself. As I could by no means persuade her of the inutility of fulfilling her request, I was obliged, if I would not break with her, to promise her to write you in her name, and to sollicite your intercession. She has, she says, the highest opinion of your humanity and your moderation which you publicly show’d in recommending to congress the fate of all the Loyalists. To content her about me, I begg only to write in a line or two in your lettre some thing, I may show her, that I may not be suspected of having not fulfilled what I promis’d. You know the delicacy of people of superior rank. Remember what Jule Cesar say’d when king Ptolomie did send him the head of Pompeus as a compliment, when he arrived in Aegypt, after the battle of Pharsales.