Idea Ripper // ArchiveCards: 1555 [Live] | Updated: 2026-10-14
Card #c1055IR // #c1055Synthesis

"it shall and may be lawful for the said speaker, and he is hereby required, to sign an order on the provincial treasurer for the payment of two thousand pounds" "we urg'd the conditional promise of the law as an additional motive to give, since every man's donation would be doubled; thus the clause work'd both ways."

— In our words · Source: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (Benjamin Franklin)

[Use when]

The funder doubts you can raise the rest, and the donors want to know their money counts.

[Why it matters]

The Assembly doubted the hospital could raise two thousand pounds privately. Franklin wrote the grant to pay only when it did, which cost the doubters nothing to pass. Donors then heard their money would be doubled. The clause is reproduced in the book; the outcome is his account.

More from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

#c1038"I took some of the papers, and, making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking…You want to learn a craft from a master's work and reading it again isn't teaching you anything. #c1039"I was charm'd with it, adopted it, dropt my abrupt contradiction and positive argumentation, and put on the humble inquirer and doubter."…Your questions keep winning arguments and people have started refusing to answer them. #c1040"I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradiction to the sentiments of others, and all positive assertion of my own." "in answering I…You are right on the substance and still losing the room.