Franklin in the house where these papers were. At different times he offered them to the British Museum, to Lord Palmerston, and to the several ministers who represented the United States in England. When this offer was made to Mr. Abbot Lawrence, he introduced the owner to Mr. Henry Stevens. This gentleman made a slight examination of them, bought them, and afterwards made them a special object of his antiquarian zeal. He spent much time in arranging them in the convenient form in which they now are, in collating and binding them. He spent more than a thousand pounds in repairing, copying, and binding the papers, and in the additions which he made to them.

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According to Mr. Stevens's careful account, there are in this collection two thousand nine hundred and thirty-eight different papers. Of these, about twenty-four hundred and thirty pages have never been printed until now. Eleven hundred and ninety-five had been printed, not always accurately, in Sparks, and five hundred and forty-six in the 'Diplomatic Correspondence," of which two hundred and forty-six were also in Sparks. It will thus be seen that a larger part of the collection had never been printed. As has been said, the part of the collection least drawn upon was that which followed the year 1780.

After the invention of the type-writer, Mr. Stevens added greatly to the value of the collection for students, by having type-writer copies made of all the papers. They are thus easily read, and there is no danger of injury in unnecessary reference to the manuscript originals.

Such was the collection which, in 1881, Mr. Stevens offered to the American government. Mr. Blaine, then Secretary of State, instructed Mr. Theodore F. Dwight, the accomplished librarian of the State Department, to examine the collection in London. Mr. Dwight did so, and his report, dated November 30 of that year, covering a statement of the history of the collection, was sent by Mr.

Blaine to Congress, with an earnest recommendation that the papers should be purchased for the nation. This communication was referred to the Joint Committee on the Library, which considered the subject with care, and reported favorably, by their chairman, Hon. George F. Hoar. The papers were bought for $35,000, and the next winter arrived in Washington.

This is not the place for an analysis of the whole of this really invaluable collection of materials for American history. I had an opportunity of examining it, a few weeks after its arrival. I soon satisfied myself that it was impossible, in any single collection, to lay before the world the additional materials which it afforded for our history. My first idea had been that a large collection of the really important papers might be made, on the general plan of the "Diplomatic Correspondence," edited by Dr. Sparks for the government, and published in 1829-30. But it is clear that such a collection would be imperfect in itself, and, to be understood, would require constant reference to other collections, some of them difficult of access. I am quite sure that the method adopted in the book now before the reader is the better method. That is to say, it is better that different editors shall attack, if I may so speak, different parts of the collection, and bring forward for the use of the public such documents, before unpublished, as are of the most value. I undertook therefore, with the full sympathy and confidence of the gentlemen who had the papers in charge, the editing and publishing of those which relate to Franklin's life of nearly nine years in France. I proposed, not simply to reprint the new documents, if I may so call them, of this collection, but also the papers from other collections which would in any way illustrate that critical part of our history, which is so nearly independent of our history at home in the same years.

There are very many such papers, which have never been published in other large collections.

For many years past the American Philosophical Society, of which Franklin was one of the founders, has had a large collection of the letters addressed to him. This collection has been used by Dr. Sparks and by the other American authors who have treated Franklin's life with care. It is of more value than ever, now that in the letter-books of the Stevens Collection we have the drafts of very many of the letters to which these are the replies, or which are written in reply to these. The officers of the Philosophical Society have arranged these letters in chronological order with good indexes. They have with the greatest kindness rendered me every facility in examining them and copying them. It would probably be difficult to persuade. the Society to part with a treasure so interesting; but to students of Franklin, it would be a great convenience if the Government could arrange to receive them, on deposit, in the FireProof Library of the State Department, and thus keep, side by side, letters and answers.

Hon. George Bancroft, with that kindness and generosity which have distinguished his life, and won for him, the regard as well as the esteem of all younger students,. kindly threw open to me the whole of his matchless collection of manuscripts, with permission to make full use of it. I have, of course, availed myself of permission so generous. The formation of this collection has been the joy, as it has been the duty, of his life. It forms a series practically of the same value as the original documents from which, at great expense, it has been copied. It includes indeed, in many instances, original manuscripts, which Mr. Bancroft has purchased from their former owners. If our studies of the Treaty of 1783 prove to have any new value for historians, they are indebted largely for it to Mr. Bancroft's cordial kindness in opening for us his archives. He has, from first to last, given us the advantage of his advice, and ready answer to unnumbered questions.

The grandson and great-grandsons of President Adams

have made it their care to provide, for the manuscripts of what one is tempted to call the "House of Adams," a fireproof library, where that invaluable and unequalled collection of journals, letters, and other manuscripts is preserved. I know of no other collection in the world where the history of a great nation can be so studied in the biography of one family. From John Adams's notes, as his active life begins, in the year 1755, till the year 1866, when the service of his grandson to America came to a fit close in the Treaty of Geneva, here is an unbroken series of letters and papers, bound and arranged and ready for the historian. The courtesy of the Messrs. Adams placed at our disposal all the resources of this collection for the period covered by our work, and the reader will see the use which we have made of them.

The correspondence between America and France often. passed through Boston, and Franklin's intimacy with leading men in that city led them to keep up a close correspondence with him, in letters now private and now official. The archives of Massachusetts therefore afford some documents which the reader will find in their places.

Mr. Loring Austin, at my request, put into my hands the very curious diary of his grandfather, the fortunate young man who carried from Boston to France the great news of Burgoyne's surrender.

Dr. Sparks, both before and after the publication of his edition of Franklin's works, made it his duty to collect all the letters of Franklin he could find in private or public collections. His collection of manuscripts contains eleven volumes of Franklin papers, of which he has only printed a part. It contains also parallel collections, foremost among which are copies of Lord Stormont's despatches while he was watching the American commissioners in Paris. Through the kindness of Mrs. Sparks and the directors of the Library of Harvard College, this collection has been open to us, and we have used it freely.

To publish all the new letters from Franklin which the Stevens and Sparks and other collections put in our hands, as a sort of appendix to Dr. Sparks's invaluable volumes, would have placed in the hands of all students the material for history now thrown open to them, if they will visit the several collections we have named. But, as I have said, after full consideration, it seemed to me best to undertake the work of editing these letters more fully, even if I failed to print much of the correspondence. The printed additions made every year to the history of that time must be considered by any one who pretended to edit Franklin's letters. The duty of the editor would thus become so important that, after carefully studying the manuscripts. and consulting with gentlemen best informed, I determined not to adopt the form of Dr. Sparks's work, nor to confine myself chiefly to Franklin's own letters and despatches. The plan of the book now in the reader's hand seemed preferable. That is, I determined to examine anew the whole mission of Franklin to France, using as best we could the advantages which so many years had given since the publication of Mr. Parton's and Mr. Bigelow's admirable studies of it, with the intention of printing all the more important letters of Franklin not published heretofore, and also the most important unpublished letters of his correspondents, which would throw light on the history or on his life in France.

I have not hesitated to reprint in a few instances papers which have been before printed, where we supposed this to be quite necessary for the narrative. But such cases have been very few. Our business has been to tell our story as briefly and as clearly as we could, and to print such illustrations as the new material offered, or as were not of ready access in well-furnished libraries. It will be seen that we have by no means confined ourselves as closely as Dr. Sparks did to Franklin's own writings. Our effort is not to show how he wrote or what he wrote, but to tell the