Letters of Note

[thesummerqueen]

Friend passed this blog along, which is interesting in itself, but I thought I'd share the post regarding one of my personal heroes - Ben Franklin.

From the pen of Benjamin Franklin comes a furious letter, written in 1775 to William Strahan — a British Member of Parliament who had, until that point, been a friend of thirty years — as the American Revolutionary War took hold. Franklin quickly had a change of mind after penning it, and it was never sent; however, word of its content later circulated and it soon become famous.

If anything, it's a lesson in how to sign-off with style.

Transcript follows. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Philada. July 5. 1775

Mr. Strahan

You are a Member of Parliament, and one of that Majority which has doomed my Country to Destruction. You have begun to burn our Towns and murder our People. — Look upon your hands! They are stained with the Blood of your Relations! — You and I were long Friends:— You are now my Enemy, — and

I am,

Yours.

B. Franklin

[Welsh cake]

Interesting... it was around that time in 1775 that William Strahan's sympathies with the American colonists' plight was replaced with hostility. I guess Benjamin Franklin wasn't amused.

[thesummerqueen]

That needs to be an intellectual meme somewhere.

"Ben Franklin is not amused." We need to find a frowny picture of him.