you are good; temperate as you are temperate; and
above all things, prove yourself as one, who from
your infancy have loved justice, liberty and concord,
in a way that has made it natural and consistent for
you to have acted, as we have seen you act in the
last seventeen years of your life. Let Englishmen
be made not only to respect, but even to love you.
When they think well of individuals in your native
country, they will go nearer to thinking well of your
country; and when your countrymen see themselves well
thought of by Englishmen, they will go nearer to thinking
well of England. Extend your views even further;
do not stop at those who speak the English tongue,
but after having settled so many points in nature
and politics, think of bettering the whole race of
men. As I have not read any part of the life
in question, but know only the character that lived
it, I write somewhat at hazard. I am sure, however,
that the life and the treatise I allude to (on the
Art of Virtue) will necessarily fulfil the chief of
my expectations; and still more so if you take up the
measure of suiting these performances to the several
views above stated. Should they even prove unsuccessful
in all that a sanguine admirer of yours hopes from
them, you will at least have framed pieces to interest
the human mind; and whoever gives a feeling of pleasure
that is innocent to man, has added so much to the fair
side of a life otherwise too much darkened by anxiety
and too much injured by pain. In the hope, therefore,
that you will listen to the prayer addressed to you
in this letter, I beg to subscribe myself, my dearest
sir,
etc.,
etc.,
“Signed, BENJ.
Vaughan.”
Continuation of the Account of my Life, begun at Passy,
near Paris, 1784.
It is some time since I receiv’d the above letters,
but I have been too busy till now to think of complying
with the request they contain. It might, too,
be much better done if I were at home among my papers,
which would aid my memory, and help to ascertain dates;
but my return being uncertain and having just now
a little leisure, I will endeavor to recollect and
write what I can; if I live to get home, it may there
be corrected and improv’d.
Not having any copy here of what is already written,
I know not whether an account is given of the means
I used to establish the Philadelphia public library,
which, from a small beginning, is now become so considerable,
though I remember to have come down to near the time
of that transaction (1730). I will therefore
begin here with an account of it, which may be struck
out if found to have been already given.