Whether  he  did  profit  by  this  delay,  and  if  so,  in  what
way  and  to  what  extent,  will  probably  never  be  known
with  absolute  certainty.     F^^ery  one's  conclusions  will  be


59

more  or  less  affected  by  their  knowledge  of  bis  cbaracter,
habits  and  necessities.  There  is  a  paragraph  in  one  of
his  letters  already  cited,  which  must  henceforth  be  weighed
in  deciding  this  question.  He  wrote  to  M.  le  Veillard
from  London  on  the  14th  of  June,  1791  :

"  I  am  much  distressed,  my  dear  friend,  at  what  you
say  you  suffer  from  my  not  arriving  in  Paris.  I  have
been  wishing  to  be  there  as  much  as  you  could  wish  to
see  me,  but  I  could  not  possibly  think  of  leaving  this
while  a  business  I  had  undertaken  was  pending,  for  which
I  rec'd  a  salary  ;  and  which,  being  now  completed,  affords
me  a  profit  of  seven  thousand  fou7tds  sterling  I  This,
my  dear  friend,  has  hitherto  kept  me  here — having  only
been  finally  terminated  on  the  nth  inst.  I  am  in  hopes
you  will  think  my  excuse  for  staying  till  it  was  done  a
good  one.  I  have  now  only  some  few  arrangements  to
make  in  consequence  of  my  success,  and  shall  undoubt-
edly be  with  you  before  the  conclusion  of  this  month."

When  this  was  written.  Dr.  Franklin  had  been  dead
but  about  a  year  ;  the  writer  had  been  in  London  barely
six  months.  He  never  pretended  in  his  correspondence
before  to  have  any  other  business  there  than  to  edit  his
grandfather's  works  ;  he  suddenly  engages  himself  upon  a
salary ;  in  less  than  six  months  finishes  his  business,  and
pockets  a  profit  of  £7000,  or  say  $35,000.  While  earn-
ing this  handsome  sum  he  was  apparently  a  free  man,
constantly  writing  to  M.  le  Veillard  that  he  was  expect-
ing to  go  in  a  few  days  or  weeks  to  Paris,  being  only
detained  in  London  to  finish  his  book.  It  is  not  easy  to
imagine  any  salaried  employment,  especially  such  a  profit-
able one  as  this  seemed  to  be,  which  imposed  so  slight  a
restraint  upon  the  movements  of  its  beneficiary.
