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Excerpt from List of the Benjamin Franklin Papers: In the Library of Congress In 1880 announcement was made in London that certain papers of Benjamin Franklin were to be sold at auction. The history of these papers was as follows: They -were bequeathed to William Temple Franklin by Dr. Franklin, and were used by him in the preparation of his edition of 'Memoirs of the life and writings of Benjamin Franklin, ' 3 vols., London, 8 vo. [1818]; they bear ample evidence of his editorial work, a large quantity of matter having been struck out; in fact, in printing his grandfather's works, he seems to have proceeded on the idea of omitting everything which reflected on the British Government. Many of the private letters and other papers are also unpublished. After the death of William Temple Franklin [in 1823] the papers were for some years in the possession of his landlord, a tailor, in London, who disposed of them, some thirty years back, to Mr. Henry Stevens, where they have since remained.- The sale was ordered by the executors of Charles Whittingham, to whom they had been pledged as security by Henry Stevens, a settlement of the Whittingham estate being necessary. The public sale was postponed and the entire collection was offered at private sale to the United States Government. The purchase was consummated in 1882. The collection contained not only manuscripts of Franklin but also many letters to him, state papers, diplomatic record books, and printed books and newspapers. At the time of the purchase a division was made, the manuscripts going to the Department of State, and the printed matter to the Library of Congress. And when the general transfer of the manuscripts was made by the Department of State to the Library of Congress, under the Executive order of March 9, 1903, the diplomatic records were retained in that Department. What is known as the -second series- was transferred, a collection bound in fourteen volumes, with a few additional pieces, such as the -Articles of Belief- and the letter to Strahan. In Senate Miscellaneous Document No. 21, 47th Congress, 1st session, was printed a list of the entire Stevens's collection of Franklin material; but that list is of little or no service to the student of history or the antiquarian. The arrangement was defective and the many errors in names and dates proved misleading. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.