Address panel with postmarks to "Mr. Peter Collinson / Mercht / London / via/ Dublin."
With an manuscript notation under the date saying "First Letter."
A postscript has been torn from the bottom left corner of the page.
Part of a collection of autograph letters signed by Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson. Items in the collection have been described individually in separate catalog records; see collection-level record for more information.
Saying he has recently written him "two long letters...on the Subject of Electricity;" commenting that on experiments he conducted since his letters he is unable to account for the "Principles laid down in those Letters, and am therefore become a little diffident of my Hypothesis, and asham'd that I have express'd myself in so positive a manner. In going on with these Experiments, how many pretty Systems do we build, which we soon find ourselves oblig'd to destroy! If there is no other Use discover'd of Electricity, this, however, is something considerable, that it may help to make a vain Man humble;" requesting that he "not expose those Letters; or if you communicate them to any Friends, you would at least conceal my Name."