How unfortunate I was [he wrote to him] that I did not press you and Lady Kames more strongly to favor us with your company farther. How much more agreeable would our journey have been, if we could have enjoyed you as far as York. We could have beguiled the way, by discoursing of a thousand things, that now we may never have an opportunity of considering together; for conversation warms the mind, enlivens the imagination, and is continually starting fresh game, that is immediately pursued and taken, and which would never have occurred in the duller intercourse of epistolary correspondence. So that whenever I reflect on the great pleasure and advantage I received from the free communication of sentiment, in the conversations we had at Kames, and in the agreeable little rides to the Tweed side, I shall forever regret our premature parting.
Even more fervid was the conclusion of this letter:
Our conversation till we came to York, was chiefly a recollection of what we had seen and heard, the pleasure we had enjoyed, and the kindness we had received in Scotland, and how far that country had exceeded our expectations. On the whole, I must say, I think the time we spent there, was six weeks of the densest happiness I have met with in any part of my life: and the agreeable and instructive society we found there in such plenty, has left so pleasing an impression on my memory, that did not strong connexions draw me elsewhere, I believe Scotland would be the country I should choose to spend the remainder of my days in.
In a later letter to Lord Kames, he returns to the same pleasing field of association.
Your invitation to make another jaunt to Scotland, and offer to meet us half way en famille, was extremely obliging. Certainly I never spent my time anywhere more agreeably, nor have I been in any place, where the inhabitants and their conversation left such lastingly pleasing impressions on my mind, accompanied with the strongest inclination once more to visit that hospitable, friendly, and sensible people.
When we recall Franklin's distaste for theology and metaphysics, the humor that ever lurked about his lips, and Sydney Smith's famous observation that it requires a surgical operation to get a joke into a Scotchman's head, we may well experience a sensation of momentary surprise when we read these earnest tributes to the charm of Scotch social conditions in 1759—a sense of surprise increased by the fact that, in the Autobiography, Franklin ends a little dissertation on the odious nature of disputation with these words: "Persons of good sense, I have since observed, seldom fall into it, except lawyers, university men, and men of all sorts that have been bred at Edinborough." But all such sensations of surprise pass away when we remember that manly simplicity, practical sagacity, a spirit of enterprise and a love of learning, which no discouragements can chill, were also Scotch characteristics that Franklin shared with Scotchmen.
When Franklin returned in 1771 to the "odious-smells, barbarous sounds, bad suppers, excellent hearts and most enlightened understandings," amid which Sydney Smith, with his exaggerated humor, afterwards pictured himself as dwelling when he was a resident of Edinburgh, William Franklin did not accompany him.
In Scotland [Franklin wrote to his son after this second visit] I spent 5 Days with Lord Kaims at his Seat, Blair Drummond near Stirling, two or three Days at Glasgow, two Days at Carron Iron Works, and the rest of the Month in and about Edinburgh, lodging at David Hume's, who entertain'd me with the greatest Kindness and Hospitality, as did Lord Kaims & his Lady. All our old Acquaintance there, Sir Alexr Dick and Lady, Mr. McGowan, Drs. Robertson, Cullen, Black, Ferguson, Russel, and others, enquired affectionately of your Welfare. I was out three Months, and the Journey was evidently of great service to my Health.
The letters from Franklin to Lord Kames cover a great variety of topics; and to his observations on some of these topics, which were of a political or scientific nature, we shall return in other connections. One letter was written, when Franklin was on the eve of sailing from Portsmouth to America in 1762, and that the moment of embarkation upon the perilous seas of that time was a solemn one is manifest enough in its opening statements:
My dear Lord,