_Letter of August 30._ The hand-writing is in a more flowing style than
the subsequent letters. Bigelow omits paragraph ten beginning "It is
said." Both Bigelow and Smyth give another paragraph in the Postscript,
beyond the signature "B. F." in my copy; also a note dated Sept. 2^d,
which contains calculations in French relating to the balloon. Smyth
says that these additions are not in the University of Pennsylvania
draft but that they occur in this press-copy, which is obviously a
mistake. In paragraph two of the Postscript "mov'd out," in Smyth,
should read "being moved out," and in the last line but one "upon"
should read "up in."
_Letter of October 8._ In the eighth line after the word "Balloon"
Smyth inserts "lately." Part of the valedictory and the signature are
omitted by Bigelow and Smyth, but the former gives an "Extract of the
Proposals" for the balloon of which I have no copy.
_Letter of November 21._ This should be dated Nov. 22, since the
ascension of d'Arlandes and de Rozier which, according to the
letter, took place the previous day is known to have been on the
21st. The orthography of the French words in Bigelow and Smyth does
not always agree with the copy. In paragraph three, for "Post," in
Smyth, read "Port;" in paragraph six for "Adventures," in Smyth, read
"Adventurers;" in paragraph thirteen for "By the emulation," in Smyth,
read "But the Emulation;" in paragraph fifteen for the phrase, in
Smyth and Bigelow, beginning, "I wish I could see the same emulation,"
correct to end, "between the two Nations as I see between the two
Parties here;" in paragraph sixteen, in both Bigelow and Smyth, for
"Experiment," read "Experience;" and for the unintelligible phrase in
both Bigelow and Smyth, "Beings of a frank and [sic] nature," read
"Beings of a Rank and Nature." Minor discrepancies between this and
the other press-copies and the letters as printed by Bigelow and Smyth
also occur. The signature is in pencil in this copy. A "P. S. Nov.
25th" is not in the press-copy, contrary to Smyth's statement, but
I have a press-copy of the French _Procès-Verbal_, therein referred
to, in Franklin's handwriting with his name and eight others affixed
as witnesses. Neither Bigelow nor Smyth print this document, which
was first reproduced in the book mentioned by Franklin in the first
paragraph of his letter, viz: "Description des Expériences de la
Machine Aérostatique par M. Faujas de Saint-Fond, Paris, 1783." Since
Franklin's copy of the _Procès-Verbal_ differs only in his spelling
the word "_sang-froid_" instead of "_sens-froid_," I do not print it.
However, other changes were introduced in the _Procès-Verbal_ when
reprinted in the second volume of M. Faujas' work, published in 1784.
The plate forming the frontispiece to this volume shows the balloon as
seen from Mr. Franklin's terrace at Passy.
_Letter of November 30._ This has never been published so far as I
know. "The Journal of the first Aerial Voyage," here mentioned, was
written by the Marquis d'Arlandes to M. Faujas de Saint-Fond on Nov.
28th and first printed in the _Journal de Paris_ but was republished by
Faujas de Saint-Fond in his second volume.
_Letter of December 1._ Smyth states that he reproduced this
letter from my press-copy but he omits the capital letters and the
contractions in spelling, as well as the references "A" and "B," which
are given by Bigelow with the remark that the drawings were not found.
"The Manuscript, containing some Particulars of the Experiment, which
I enclose," mentioned in the Postscript, is a two-page account in
French, in Franklin's handwriting, by an eye-witness of the voyage, M.
le Chevalier de Cubière. As this interesting document has never been
published, to my knowledge, I have given it here _literatim_ from my
press-copy.
--Transcriber's note--
A caret (^) indicates the following character or characters were
printed in superscript. Some superscripts were silently converted to
regular characters (i.e. 27th instead of 27^th).
Except for the following corrections, the original text and punctuation
remain unchanged:
p. 7, Added a missing comma after "Sir" at the beginning of the letter
"A hot air balloon carrying animals", as there is one in every
other letter;
p. 7, added missing "t" to "than" in
"more satisfactory than anything";
p. 9, "Procés verbal" corrected to "Procès verbal";
p. 11, added a missing comma after "Robert" in
"Mess^rs. Robert, two Brothers,";
p. 11, "Aiant encor dans leur Galerie le deux tiers de leur
Approvissonement." was corrected to "... les deux tiers de
leur Approvisionement." "Aiant encor" might be "Ayant encore",
as printed in the "Journal des sçavans" of January 1784,
but was not corrected here;
p. 14, "Carr" corrected to "Car" in "on both Sides their Car,";
p. 16, removed a space after "d'" in "Beaucoup d'habitants";
p. 16, "Bart." corrected to "Bar^t." in "Sir JOSEPH BANKS, Bar^t.";
p. 17, "Sept. 2d" corrected to "Sept. 2^d", for 2nd.
The following possible mispellings have been retained:
p. 6, "M. Pilatre du Rozier" should be "M. Pilâtre de Rozier";
p. 10, "chearfully" is possibly an older spelling for "cheerfully";
p. 16, there are several missing accents that might have been in the
original French document, in "desorientés", "operation",
"dejà", "depart", "detaché" and "extremités".
There are two occurences of "&c" for "&c."