One paper, which I wrote for Mr. Kinnersley, on the sameness of
lightning with electricity, I sent to Dr. Mitchel, an acquaintance
of mine, and one of the members also of that society, who wrote me
word that it had been read, but was laughed at by the connoisseurs.
The papers, however, being shown to Dr. Fothergill, he thought them
of too much value to be stifled, and advis'd the printing of them.
Mr. Collinson then gave them to Cave for publication in his
Gentleman's Magazine; but he chose to print them separately in
a pamphlet, and Dr. Fothergill wrote the preface. Cave, it seems,
judged rightly for his profit, for by the additions that arrived
afterward they swell'd to a quarto volume, which has had five editions,
and cost him nothing for copy-money.
It was, however, some time before those papers were much taken notice
of in England. A copy of them happening to fall into the hands
of the Count de Buffon, a philosopher deservedly of great reputation
in France, and, indeed, all over Europe, he prevailed with M. Dalibard
to translate them into French, and they were printed at Paris.
The publication offended the Abbe Nollet, preceptor in Natural Philosophy
to the royal family, and an able experimenter, who had form'd and
publish'd a theory of electricity, which then had the general vogue.
He could not at first believe that such a work came from America,
and said it must have been fabricated by his enemies at Paris, to decry
his system. Afterwards, having been assur'd that there really existed
such a person as Franklin at Philadelphia, which he had doubted,
he wrote and published a volume of Letters, chiefly address'd to me,
defending his theory, and denying the verity of my experiments,
and of the positions deduc'd from them.
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