"difregard" the petition of your representatives in affembly; accompanied by other petitions figned by thousands of your fellow-fubjects, as loyal, if not as wife and as good as yourselves! Would you wish to fee your great and amiable prince act a part that could not become a Dey of Algiers? Do you, who are Americans, pray for a precedent of fuch contempt in the treatment of an American affembly! Such "total difregard" of their humble applications to the throne?-Surely your wisdoms here have overfhot yourselves.But as wisdom fhews itself not only in doing what is fight, but in confeffing and amending what is wrong, I recommend the latter particularly to your prefent attention; being perfuaded of this confequence that though you have been mad enough to fign fuch a petition, you never will be fools enough to prefent it. Il metodo :

"

There is one thing mentioned in the preface, which I find I omitted to take notice of as I came along, [viz.] the refufal of the houfe to enter Mr. Dickinson's proteft on their minutes: This is mentioned in fuch a manner there and in the newspapers, as to infinuate a charge of fome partiality and injuftice in the affembly. But the reafons were merely thefe, that though protesting may be a practice with the Lords of parliament, there is no inftance of it in the houfe of commons, whose proceedings are the model followed by the affemblies of America; That there is no precedent of it on our votes, from the beginning of our prefent

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fent conftitution; And that the introducing fuch à practice would be attended with inconveniences, as the representatives in affembly are not, like the Lords in parliament, unaccountable to any conftituents; and would therefore find it neceffary for their own juftification, if the reasons of the minority for being against a measure were admitted in the votes, to put there likewife the reasons that induced the majority to be for it: Whereby the votes, which were intended only as a register of propofitions and determinations, would be filled with the difputes of members with members; and the public business be thereby greatly retarded, if ever brought to a period.

As that Proteft was a mere abftract of Mr. DICKINSON'S fpeech, every particular of it will be found anfwered in the following fpeech of Mr. Galloway; from which it is fit that I fhould no longer detain the reader *.

[Mr. Galloway's fpeech is of courfe here omitted-In the Penfylvania edition of the Preface, an epitaph followed here. E.]

V. PAPERS

V.

PAPER S

ON

MISCELLANEOUS SUBJECTS.

N. B. All the Papers under this divifion are diftinguished by the letters [M. P.] placed in the running title at the bead of each leaf.

[A Scheme for a new Alphabet and reformed mode of Spelling; with Remarks and Examples concerning the fame; and an Enquiry into its Ufes, in a Correspondence between Mifs S―n and Dr. Franklin, written in the Characters of the Alphabet *.]

**[I think it proper to mention that Miss S-n, is the lady that appears fo confpicuoufly in the edition of Dr. Franklin's philofophical papers and that if I am not mistaken, the name of a Sir Thomas Smith is referred to, in one of the copies which I have seen of this paper.

For the nature and intention of this alphabet, &c. I must refer to what Dr. Franklin has himself faid upon the fubject, in answer to Mifs S-n's objections; as the reader may understand the whole in an hour or two. It is neceffary to add, that the new letters ufed in the course of printing this paper, are exactly copied from the manufcript in my poffeffion; there being no provifion for a distinction in the character as written or printed. I have no other way therefore of marking the fcored parts of the manufcript (anfwering to italics,) than by placing fuch paffages between inverted commas.

As to capitals, I fhould have provided for them by means of larger types, but the form of fome of them would have made them too large for the page: however, were the author's general fyftem ever adopted, nothing would be easier than to remedy this particular.

I hope I fhall be forgiven for obferving, that even our present printed and written characters are fundamentally the fame. The [Roman] printed one is certainly the neateft, fimpleft, and most legible of the two; but for the face of eafe and rapidity in our writing, it feems we there infert a number of joining or terminating strokes, fubftitute curves for angles, and give the letters a fmall inclination, to which rules even the letters a, g, r and w, are easily reconcileable. This will cease to appear a remark of mere curiofity, if applied to the decyphering of foreign correfpondence. But for this purpofe. I would add, that the French in particular, seem to treat the fmall up-ftroke in the letters b, p, &c. as proceeding originally in an angle from the bottom of the down-ftroke: they therefore begin it with a curve from the bottom, and keep it all the way diftinct; hence forming their written r much like our written v. This laft letter v, they again diftinguifh by a loop at the bottom; which loop they often. place where we place an outward curve. The remarkable terminating which they fometimes ufe, feems intended for our printed s begun from the bottom, but from corrupt writing inverted and put horizontally, inftead of vertically. It is rather from bad writing than fyftem, that their n and m appear like u and w.-I could go on to speak of the formation of written and printed capitals, but as this would be a work of mere curiofity, I leave it for the reader's amufement. E.]

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