Benjamin Franklin

89), 500 An Account of the Supremest Court of Judicature in Pennsylvania, viz. the Court of the Press (1789), 501 An Address to the Public (1789), 505 To David Hartley (December 4, 1789), 506 To Ezra Stiles (March 9, 1790), 507 On the Slave-Trade (1790), 510 Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America, 513 An Arabian Tale, 519 A Petition of the Left Hand (date unknown), 520 Some Good Whig Principles (date unknown), 521 The Art of Procuring Pleasant Dreams, 523

NOTES, 529

INTRODUCTION

I. FRANKLIN'S MILIEU: THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT

Benjamin Franklin's reputation, according to John Adams, "was more universal than that of Leibnitz or Newton, Frederick or Voltaire, and his character more beloved and esteemed than any or all of them."[i-1] The historical critic recognizes increasingly that Adams was not thinking idly when he doubted whether Franklin's panegyrical and international reputation could ever be explained without doing "a complete history of the philosoph