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[145] [A Conversation with Franklin’s London Friends, 1821] Robert Aspland During his London years, Benjamin Franklin enjoyed the company of several men who met every other Thursday at St. Paul’s Coffeehouse and, after 1772, at the London Coffeehouse. He referred to the group as his “Club of Honest Whigs.” The men who formed this club shared an interest in scientific experimentation , but, as Franklin’s name for the club suggests, they also shared similar political views. Most sympathized with the American cause and dissented from the Church of England. Since their membership and their meetings were informal, details about the club are extremely difficult to locate. Andrew Kippis, one of Franklin’s club members, listed several others in his Biographia Britannica (3: 222). Besides Joseph Priestley, the group included James Burgh, a political writer; John Canton, a schoolmaster and electrical experimenter; Richard Price; and Abraham Rees, a Presbyterian minister and an encyclopaedist. In a 1966 contribution to the William and Mary Quarterly, Verner W. Crane assembled the fullest information about this club, but he was unable to come up with a full list of its members and admitted that he could not independently verify some of the members Kippis listed in Biographia Britannica. Brief as it is, the following excerpt from the diary of Robert Aspland (1782–1845), a Unitarian minister, provides much information to supplement Crane’s discussion of Franklin’s “Club of Honest Whigs.” Aspland recorded some table talk that occured in 1821 at Dr. Williams’s Library in Red Cross Street, Cripplegate, an important gathering place for many dissenting ministers in London. Aspland’s diary provides independent verification that Abraham Rees was indeed a member of Franklin’s club: an exciting discovery. Rees later developed a reputation for his massive New Cyclopaedia, or, Universal Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences (1802–1820). Franklin’s contact with Rees suggests that he could have influenced his encyclopedic thinking. Aspland’s diary also provides the names of three other members of Franklin’s club not franklin in his own time [146] jan. 11, 1821.—dr. rees related the pleasant meetings of a Club which used to meet at the London Coffee-house, of which Dr. Franklin was a member. Every thing new in the Royal Society was there talked of. Dr. F. was the life of the Club; but when a stranger was introduced was always mute. On the breaking out of the American war, the Club became political: this lessened its usefulness; but the first news of proceedings in America were there to be learned. Dr. Franklin was exceedingly fond of the air-bath, i.e. of stripping himself and sitting in a strong current of air. Dr. Heberden once told him that he went beyond him in this way; for he not only sat unclothed in a draught, but took a pitcher of water and threw it up to the ceiling, and let it fall on his body. Mr. Belsham.—Dr. Franklin was sceptical. He told Dr. Priestley that he had never fairly studied the evidences of Christianity, and lamented that, owing to his having in early life been accustomed to hear Christianity ridiculed , he was never able to bring himself to study it seriously. Dr. Kippis and Dr. Harris always looked on Dr. F. with suspicion. Dr. Rees.—But Dr. Priestley idolized him. Dr. Kippis knew little of the world; Dr. Harris differed from Dr. F. in his politics. The truth lay between the two. From Memoir of the Life, Works and Correspondence of . . . Robert Aspland, of Hackney (London: Edward T. Whitfield, 1850), pp. 400–401. listed in either Kippis or Crane: Thomas Belsham, another Unitarian minister ; Abraham Harris, a Unitarian minister from Swansea; and Dr. William Hebereden, a prominent physician. Aspland’s diary demonstrates that Franklin ’s fellow club members remembered him with great fondness, though they bristled at his religious skepticism. It also indicates Franklin’s willingness to welcome strangers to the club and let them speak their minds. ...

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