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diff --git a/36897-8.txt b/36897-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..86a5043 --- /dev/null +++ b/36897-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,20453 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Benjamin Franklin; Self-Revealed, Volume II +(of 2), by Wiliam Cabell Bruce + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Benjamin Franklin; Self-Revealed, Volume II (of 2) + A Biographical and Critical Study Based Mainly on his own Writings + +Author: Wiliam Cabell Bruce + +Release Date: August 15, 2011 [EBook #36897] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BENJAMIN FRANKLIN; SELF-REVEALED, VOL II *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Josephine Paolucc and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive.) + + + + + + + +BENJAMIN FRANKLIN + +SELF-REVEALED + +A BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL STUDY BASED MAINLY ON HIS OWN WRITINGS + +BY + +WILLIAM CABELL BRUCE + +IN TWO VOLUMES + +VOLUME II + +G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS +NEW YORK AND LONDON +_The Knickerbocker Press_ +1917 + + +COPYRIGHT, 1917 +BY +W. CABELL BRUCE + +_The Knickerbocker Press, New York_ + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER PAGE + +I.--FRANKLIN'S PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 1 + +II.--FRANKLIN AS A MAN OF BUSINESS 26 + +III.--FRANKLIN AS A STATESMAN 95 + +IV.--FRANKLIN AS A MAN OF SCIENCE 350 + +V.--FRANKLIN AS A WRITER 423 + +INDEX 531 + + + + +Benjamin Franklin + +Self-Revealed + + + + +CHAPTER I + +Franklin's Personal Characteristics + + +The precise explanation of the great concourse of friends that Franklin +drew about him, at the different stages of his long journey through the +world, is to be found partly in his robust, honorable character and mental +gifts. The sterner virtues, which are necessarily the foundations of such +esteem as he enjoyed, he possessed in an eminent degree. An uncommonly +virile and resolute spirit animated the body, which was equal in youth to +the task of swimming partly on and partly under water from near Chelsea to +Blackfriars, and of exhibiting on the way all of Thevenot's motions and +positions as well as some of its own, and which shortly afterwards even +sported about the becalmed Berkshire in the Atlantic almost with the +strength and ease of one of the numerous dolphins mentioned by Franklin in +his Journal of his voyage on that ship from England to America. He hated +cruelty, injustice, rapacity and arbitrary conduct. It was no idle or +insincere compliment that Burke paid him when he spoke of his "liberal and +manly way of thinking." How stoutly his spirit met its responsibilities in +Pennsylvania, prior to the Declaration of Independence, we have seen. The +risks incident to the adoption of that declaration it incurred with the +same fearless courage. Of all the men who united in its adoption, he, +perhaps, was in the best position to know, because of his long residence in +England, and familiarity with the temper of the English monarch and his +ministry, what the personal consequences to the signers were likely to be, +if the American cause should prove unsuccessful. He had a head to lose even +harder to replace than that of his friend Lavoisier, he had a fortune to be +involved in flame or confiscation, the joy of living meant to him what it +has meant to few men, and more than one statement in his writings affords +us convincing proof that, quite apart from the collective act of all the +signers in pledging their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to the "glorious +cause," he did not lose sight of the fact that the Gray Tower still stood +upon its ancient hill with its eye upon the Traitor's Gate, and its bosom +stored with instruments of savage vengeance. Indeed, it was the thought +that his son had been engaged against him in a game, in which not only his +fortune but his neck had been at stake, that made it so difficult for him, +forgiving as he was, to keep down the bile of violated nature. But, when +the time came for affixing his signature to the Declaration, he not only +did it with the equanimity of the rest, but, if tradition may be believed, +with a light-hearted intrepidity like that of Sir Walter Raleigh jesting on +the scaffold with the edge of the axe. "We must all hang together," +declared John Hancock, when pleading for unanimity. "Yes," Franklin is said +to have replied, "we must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we +shall all hang separately." + +The inability of old age, partly from sheer loss of animal vigor, and +partly from the desire for peace, produced by the general decline in +vividness of everything in a world, that it is about to quit, to assert +itself with the force of will and temper, that belongs to us in our prime, +is one of the most noticeable phenomena of the later stages of human +existence. But John Adams to the contrary, the evidence all tends to show +that the resolution of character exhibited by Franklin in the heyday of his +physical strength he exhibited to the last. He was always slow to anger. +Independent of the remarkable self-control, which enabled him to preserve a +countenance, while Wedderburn was traducing him, as fixed as if it had been +carved out of wood, his anger was not kindled quickly, among other reasons +because he was too wise and just not to know that, if we could lay aside +the sensitiveness of exaggerated self-importance, there would be but little +real occasion for anger in the ordinary course of human life. But when +meanness, injustice or other aggravated forms of human depravity were to be +rebuked, the indignation of Franklin remained deliberate, judicious, +calculating and crushing to the last. One illustration of this we have +already given in his letter to Captain Peter Landais. Others we shall have +brought to our attention in several of his letters to Arthur Lee. Upon +these occasions, angry as he was, he was apt to make out his case with very +much the same cool completeness as that with which he demonstrated in a +letter to the British Post Office that it would be a mistake to shift His +Majesty's mails from the Western to the Eastern Post Route in New Jersey. +The time never came when he was not fully as militant as the occasion +required, though never more so. + +And his integrity was as marked as his courage. "Splashes of Dirt thrown +upon my Character, I suffered while fresh to remain," he once said. "I did +not chuse to spread by endeavouring to remove them, but rely'd on the +vulgar Adage _that they would all rub off when they were dry_." And such +was his reputation for uprightness that, as a rule, he could neglect +attacks upon his character with impunity. The one vaunt of his life, if +such it can be called, was his statement to John Jay that no person could +truthfully declare that Benjamin Franklin had wronged him. A statement of +that kind, uttered by an even better man than Franklin, might well be +answered in the spirit that prompted Henry IV of France, when his attention +was called to a memorial inscription, which asserted that its subject never +knew fear, to remark, "Then he never snuffed a candle with his fingers." +But that Franklin was a man of sterling probity is unquestionable.[1] "We +ought always to do what appears best to be done without much regarding what +others may think of it," he wrote to William Carmichael, and, at more than +one trying crisis of his career, he rose without difficulty to the +requirements of his maxim. Lord North had little love for him, but he is +credited with the remarkable statement, during the American War, that, in +his belief, Franklin was the only man in France whose hands were not +stained with stock jobbery. When the false charge was made that Franklin +had never accounted for one of the many millions of livres entrusted to him +by our French ally, no pride could suffer more acutely than did his from +its inability to disprove the charge immediately. When enemies, to whom he +had never given any just cause of offence whatever, were calumniating him +towards the close of his life, his desire to leave the reputation of an +honest man behind him became the strongest of his motives. The flattering +language of great men, he said in his _Journal of the Negotiation for Peace +with Great Britain_, did not mean so much to him when he found himself so +near the end of life as to esteem lightly all personal interests and +concerns except that of maintaining to the last, and leaving behind him the +tolerably good character that he had previously supported. Still later he +wrote to Henry Laurens, accepting the offer of that true patriot and +gentleman to refute the slanders with regard to his career in France, and +saying: + + I apprehend that the violent Antipathy of a certain + person to me may have produced some Calumnies, which, + what you have seen and heard here may enable you easily + to refute. You will thereby exceedingly oblige one, who + has lived beyond all other Ambition, than that of dying + with the fair Character he has long endeavoured to + deserve.[2] + +When the negotiations for peace between Great Britain and the United States +began, Richard Oswald, the envoy of Lord Shelburne, told Franklin that a +part of the confidence felt in him by the English Ministry was inspired by +his repute for open, honest dealing. This was not a mere diplomatic +_douceur_, but a just recognition of his candid, straightforward conduct in +his commerce with men. He was very resourceful and dexterous, if need were, +and, in his early life, when he was promoting his own, or the public +interests, he exhibited at times a finesse that bordered upon craftiness; +but, when Wedderburn taxed him with duplicity, he imputed to Franklin's +nature a vice incompatible with his frank, courageous disposition. It was +his outspoken sincerity of character that enabled him, during the American +War, to retain the attachment of his English friends even when he was +holding up their land as one too wicked for them to dwell in. + +His intellectual traits, too, were of a nature to win social fame. In his +graphic description of Franklin in extreme old age, Doctor Manasseh Cutler, +of Massachusetts, brings him before us with these telling strokes of his +pencil: + + I was highly delighted with the extensive knowledge he + appeared to have of every subject, the brightness of + his memory, and clearness and vivacity of all his + mental faculties, notwithstanding his age. His manners + are perfectly easy, and everything about him seems to + diffuse an unrestrained freedom and happiness. He has + an incessant vein of humour, accompanied with an + uncommon vivacity, which seems as natural and + involuntary as his breathing. + +In other words, whatever knowledge Franklin had was readily available for +social purposes, and suffused with the gaiety and humor which are so +ingratiating, when accompanied, as they were in his case, by the desire to +please and do good.[3] "He had wit at will," is the testimony of an +unfriendly but honest witness, John Adams. His humor it would be difficult +to over-emphasize. It ranged from punning, trifling, smutty jests and horse +laughter to the sly, graceful merriment of Addison and the bitter realism +of Swift. It irradiated his conversation, his letters, his writings, his +passing memoranda, at times even his scientific essays and political +papers. "Iron is always sweet, and every way taken is wholesome and +friendly to the human Body," he states in his _Account of the New-Invented +Pennsylvanian Fireplaces_; but his waggish propensity is too much for him, +and he adds, "except in Weapons." Jefferson said that Franklin was not +allowed to draft the Declaration of Independence for fear that he would +insert a joke in it. So far as his humor assumed literary forms, we shall +speak of it in another place. We are concerned with it now only so far as +it influenced his conversation. In the _Autobiography_ he tells us that his +reputation among his fellow-printers at Watts's Printing House in London as +"a pretty good _riggite_, that is, a jocular verbal satirist," helped to +support his consequence in the society. In the same book, he also tells us +that later, wishing to break a habit that he was getting into of +prattling, punning and joking, which made him acceptable to trifling +company only, he gave Silence the second place in his little _Book of +Virtues_. "What new story have you lately heard agreeable for telling in +conversation?" was one of the standing questions, of his conception, which +were to be answered by the members of the Junto at each of its meetings. +And, even when he was in his eighty-third year, he could say to Elizabeth +Partridge that, notwithstanding the gout, the stone and old age, he enjoyed +many comfortable intervals, in which he forgot all his ills, and amused +himself in reading or writing, or in conversation with friends, joking, +laughing and telling merry stories, as when she first knew him a young man +about fifty. His puns at times were as flat as puns usually are, and some +of his stories could hardly have prospered in the ear that heard them, if +they had not been set off by high animal spirits and contagious good humor. +But some of those that crept into his letters, whether original or +borrowed, are good enough for repetition. He seems to have had one for +every possible combination of circumstances. "The Doctor," Miss Adams +observes, "is always silent unless he has some diverting story to tell, of +which he has a great collection." The mutinous and quarrelsome temper of +his soldiers at Gnadenhutten, when they were idle, put him in mind of the +sea-captain, who made it a rule to always keep his men at work, and who +exclaimed, upon being told by his mate, that there was nothing more to +employ them about, "_Oh, make them scour the anchor._" His +absent-mindedness, when electrocuting a turkey, in setting up an electric +circuit through his own body, which cost him the loss of his consciousness, +and a numbness in his arms and the back of his neck, which did not wear off +until the next morning, put him in mind of the blunderer who, "being about +to steal powder, made a hole in the cask with a hot iron." At times, there +was a subjective quality about his stories which lifted them above the +level of mere jests. When the suggestion was made that, in view of the +favor conferred upon America by the repeal of the Stamp Act by Parliament, +America could not, with any face of decency, refuse to defray the expense +incurred by Great Britain in stamping so much paper and parchment, Franklin +did not lack an apposite story in which a hot iron was again made to +figure. + + The whole Proceeding [he said] would put one in Mind of + the Frenchman that used to accost English and other + Strangers on the Pont-Neuf, with many Compliments, and + a red hot Iron in his Hand; _Pray Monsieur Anglois_, + says he, _Do me the Favour to let me have the Honour of + thrusting this hot Iron into your Backside?_ Zoons, + what does the Fellow mean! Begone with your Iron or + I'll break your Head! _Nay Monsieur_, replies he, _if + you do not chuse it, I do not insist upon it. But at + least, you will in Justice have the Goodness to pay me + something for the heating of my Iron._ + +This story was too good not to have a sequel. + + As you observe [he wrote to his sister Jane] there was + no swearing in the story of the poker, when I told it. + The late new dresser of it was, probably, the same, or + perhaps akin to him, who, in relating a dispute that + happened between Queen Anne and the Archbishop of + Canterbury, concerning a vacant mitre, which the Queen + was for bestowing on a person the Archbishop thought + unworthy, made both the Queen and the Archbishop swear + three or four thumping oaths in every sentence of the + discussion, and the Archbishop at last gained his + point. One present at this tale, being surprised, said, + "But did the Queen and the Archbishop swear so at one + another?" "O no, no," says the relator; "that is only + _my way_ of telling the story." + +Another rather elaborate story was prompted by Franklin's disapproval of +the Society of the Cincinnati. + + The States [he said in his famous letter to his + daughter] should not only restore to them the _Omnia_ of + their first Motto (omnia reliquit servare rempublicam) + which many of them have left and lost, but pay them + justly, and reward them generously. They should not be + suffered to remain, with (all) their new-created + Chivalry, _entirely_ in the Situation of the Gentleman + in the Story, which their _omnia reliquit_ reminds me + of.... He had built a very fine House, and thereby much + impair'd his Fortune. He had a Pride, however, in + showing it to his Acquaintance. One of them, after + viewing it all, remark'd a Motto over the Door + [Transcriber's note: The = represents a dash above the + O] "[=O]IA VANITAS." "What," says he, "is the Meaning + of this [=O]IA? It is a word I don't understand." "I + will tell you," said the Gentleman; "I had a mind to + have the Motto cut on a Piece of smooth Marble, but + there was not room for it between the Ornaments, to be + put in Characters large enough to be read. I therefore + made use of a Contraction antiently very common in Latin + Manuscripts, by which the _m's_ and _n's_ in Words are + omitted, and the Omissions noted by a little Dash above, + which you may see there; so that the Word is _omnia_, + OMNIA VANITAS." "O," says his Friend, "I now comprehend + the Meaning of your motto, it relates to your Edifice; + and signifies, that, if you have abridged your _Omnia_, + you have, nevertheless, left your VANITAS legible at + full length." + +The determination of the enemies of America after the Revolution to have it +that, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, America was going from +bad to worse, brought out still another story: + + They are angry with us and hate us, and speak all + manner of evil of us; but we flourish, notwithstanding + [he wrote to his grandnephew, Jonathan Williams]. They + put me in mind of a violent High Church Factor, + resident some time in Boston, when I was a Boy. He had + bought upon Speculation a Connecticut Cargo of Onions, + which he flatter'd himself he might sell again to great + Profit, but the Price fell, and they lay upon hand. He + was heartily vex'd with his Bargain, especially when he + observ'd they began to _grow_ in the Store he had + fill'd with them. He show'd them one Day to a Friend. + "Here they are," says he, "and they are _growing_ too! + I damn 'em every day; but I think they are like the + Presbyterians; the more I curse 'em, the more they + _grow_." + +It was impossible for such an irrational thing as the duel to escape +Franklin's humorous insight, and a story like the following tended far more +effectively to end the superstition upon which it throve than any pains or +penalties that law could devise: + + A Man [wrote Franklin from Passy to Thomas Percival] + says something, which another tells him is a Lie. They + fight; but, whichever is killed, the Point in dispute + remains unsettled. To this purpose they have a pleasant + little Story here. A Gentleman in a Coffee-house + desired another to sit farther from him. "Why so?" + "Because, Sir, you stink." "That is an Affront, and you + must fight me." "I will fight you, if you insist upon + it; but I do not see how that will mend the Matter. For + if you kill me, I shall stink too; and if I kill you, + (you) will stink, if possible, worse than you do at + present." + +This is one of those stories which make their own application, but the +grave reflections, by which it was followed, are well worthy of quotation +too. + + How can such miserable Sinners as we are [added + Franklin] entertain so much Pride, as to conceit that + every Offence against our imagined Honour merits + _Death_? These petty Princes in their own Opinion would + call that Sovereign a Tyrant, who should put one of + them to death for a little uncivil Language, tho' + pointed at his sacred Person; yet every one of them + makes himself Judge in his own Cause, condemns the + offender without a Jury, and undertakes himself to be + the Executioner. + +Some _bon mots_, too, of Franklin have come down to us with his stories. +When a neighbor of his in Philadelphia consulted him as to how he could +keep trespassers from coming into his back yard, and stealing small beer +from a keg, which he kept there, he replied, "Put a pipe of Madeira +alongside of it." When Lord Stormont, the British Ambassador to France, +hatched the report that a large part of Washington's army had surrendered, +Franklin was asked whether it was true. "No sir," he said, "it is not a +truth, it is only a stormont." The result was that for some time no lies +were told in Paris but only "stormonts." It was not often that the wit of +Franklin was barbed with malice, but there were good reasons why the malice +in this instance should never have cost him any regret. When the American +Commissioners proposed an exchange of prisoners to Lord Stormont, he did +not deign to reply, but when they followed up their proposition with +another letter, he returned a communication to them without date or +signature in these insolent words: "The King's Ambassador receives no +letters from rebels but when they come to implore his Majesty's mercy." The +American Commissioners, with Franklin doubtless as their scrivener, were +quite equal to the occasion. "In answer to a letter which concerns some of +the most material interests of humanity, and of the two nations, Great +Britain and the United States of America, now at war," they retorted, "we +received the inclosed _indecent_ paper, as coming from your lordship, which +we return, for your lordship's more mature consideration." Between Franklin +and the vivacity of the Parisians, Lord Stormont found it not a little +difficult to maintain his position of frigid and relentless dignity. +Commenting in a letter to John Lovell, after Lord Stormont had left France, +upon the expense entailed upon the United States by supernumerary +commissioners, Franklin takes this parting shot at the Ambassador; we +reduce such of his words as were in French to English: + + I imagine every one of us spends nearly as much as Lord + Stormont did. It is true, he left behind him the + character of a niggard; and, when the advertisement + appeared for the sale of his household goods, all + Paris laughed at an article of it, perhaps very + innocently expressed, "a great quantity of table linen, + which has never been used." "That is very true," say + they, "for he has never given any one anything to + eat."[4] + +Another _bon mot_ of Franklin was his reply when he was told that Howe had +taken Philadelphia. "No," he said, "Philadelphia has taken Howe"; and so it +proved. Still another owed its origin to the balloon in its infancy. "Of +what use is a balloon?" someone asked in Franklin's presence. "Of what +use," he answered, "is a new-born baby?" + +But to form a correct impression of Franklin's humor we should think of it, +to use Dr. Cutler's comparison, as something as natural to him as the rise +and fall of his chest in breathing. It played like an iris over the +commonest transactions of his life. If it was only a lost prayer book of +his wife that he was advertising for in his _Gazette_, he did it in such +terms as these: + + Taken out of a Pew in the Church some months since, a + Common Prayer-Book, bound in Red, gilt, and letter'd + D. F. on each corner. The Person who took it is desir'd + to open it, and read the Eighth Commandment, and + afterwards return it to the same Pew again; upon which + no further Notice will be taken. + +At times, the humor is mere waggishness. When he was the Colonial Deputy +Postmaster-General, he indorsed his letters, "Free, B. Franklin," but, +after he became the Postmaster-General of the United States, out of +deference for the American struggle for liberty, he changed the indorsement +to "B. Free Franklin." Even in his brief memoranda on the backs of letters, +there are gleams of the same overflowing vivacity. Upon the manuscript of a +long poem, received by him, when in France, he jotted down the words: "From +M. de Raudiere, a poor Poet, who craves assistance to enable him to finish +an epic poem which he is writing against the English. He thinks General +Howe will be off as soon as the poem appears." When a Benedictine monk, the +prior for a time of the Abbey of St. Pierre de Chalon, lost money at cards, +and wrote to him for his aid, he made this endorsement upon the letter: +"Dom Bernard, Benedictine, wants me to pay his Gaming Debts--and he will +pray for success to our Cause!" + +The humor of Franklin was too broad at times not to find expression +occasionally in practical jokes. When in England, during his maturer years, +he was in the habit of pretending to read his Parable against Persecution, +which he had learnt by heart, and in which the manner of the Old Testament +is skilfully imitated, out of his Bible, as the fifty-first Chapter of the +Book of Genesis. The remarks of the Scripturians on it, he said in a letter +written by him a year before his death, were sometimes very diverting. On +one occasion, he wrote to the famous English printer, John Baskerville, +that, to test the acumen of a connoisseur, who had asserted that +Baskerville would blind all the readers of the nation by the thin and +narrow strokes of his letters, he submitted to the inspection of the +gentleman, as a specimen of Baskerville's printing, what was in reality a +fragment of a page printed by Caslon. Franklin protested that he could not +for his life see in what respects the print merited the gentleman's +criticism. The gentleman saw in it everywhere illustrations of the justice +of this criticism and declared that he could not even then read the +specimen without pain in his eyes. + + I spared him that Time [said Franklin] the Confusion of + being told, that these were the Types he had been + reading all his life, with so much Ease to his Eyes; + the Types his adored Newton is printed with, on which + he has pored not a little; nay, the very Types his own + Book is printed with, (for he is himself an Author) and + yet never discovered this painful Disproportion in + them, till he thought they were yours.[5] + +Associated with these moral and intellectual traits was a total lack of all +anti-social characteristics or habits. When Franklin was in his +twenty-first year, he made this sage entry in his Journal of his voyage +from London to Philadelphia: + + Man is a sociable being, and it is, for aught I know, + one of the worst of punishments to be excluded from + Society. I have read abundance of fine things on the + subject of solitude, and I know 'tis a common boast in + the mouths of those that affect to be thought wise, + _that they are never less alone than when alone_. I + acknowledge solitude an agreeable refreshment to a busy + mind; but were these thinking people obliged to be + always alone, I am apt to think they would quickly find + their very being insupportable to them. + +In his youth he adopted the Socratic method of argument, and grew, he tells +us in the _Autobiography_, very artful and expert in drawing people, even +of superior knowledge, into concessions, the consequences of which they did +not foresee, entangling them in difficulties out of which they could not +extricate themselves, and so obtaining victories that neither he nor his +cause always deserved. But, in a few years, he discovered that these +victories were Pyrrhic victories, and he gradually left off this doubtful +kind of dialectics, retaining only the habit of expressing himself in terms +of modest diffidence, never using when he advanced anything, that might +possibly be disputed, the words "certainly," "undoubtedly" or any others +that gave the air of positiveness to an opinion, but rather saying "I +conceive" or "apprehend" a thing to be so and so; "it appears to me," or "I +should think it is so or so" for such and such reasons; or "I imagine it to +be so," or "it is so if I am not mistaken." + + As the chief ends of conversation [he declared] are to + _inform_ or to be _informed_, to _please_ or to + _persuade_, I wish well-meaning, sensible men would not + lessen their power of doing good by a positive, + assuming manner, that seldom fails to disgust, tends to + create opposition, and to defeat every one of those + purposes for which speech was given to us, to wit, + giving or receiving information or pleasure. + +And that Franklin completely succeeded in rooting out the last vestige of +dogmatism in his nature we not only have his testimony but that of +Jefferson, who was not even born when he resolved to do it. "It was one of +the rules which, above all others, made Dr. Franklin the most amiable of +men in society," he said, "never to contradict anybody." Long before this, +when Franklin was only in his forty-fifth year, James Logan wrote of him to +Peter Collinson in these words: "Our Benjamin Franklin is certainly an +extraordinary man, one of a singular good judgment, but of equal modesty." + +How noble was his capacity for self-effacement in the investigation of +truth we shall see later on. In this place, it is enough to say that even +the adulation poured out upon him in France did not in the slightest degree +turn his head. He accepted it with the ingenuous pleasure with which he +accepted everything that tended to confirm his impression that life was a +game fully worth the candle, but, much as he loved France and the French, +ready as he was to take a sip of everything that Paris pronounced +exquisite, celestial or divine, it is manifest enough that he regarded with +no little amusement the effort of French hyperbole to assign to him the +rôle of Jupiter Tonans. When Felix Nogaret submitted to him his French +version of Turgot's epigram, "Eripuit cælo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis," +Franklin, after acknowledging the flood of compliments that he could never +hope to merit, with which the writer had overwhelmed him in his letter, +added, "I will only call your attention to two inaccuracies in the original +line. In spite of my electrical experiments, the lightning descends just +the same before my very nose and beard, and, as to tyrants, there have been +more than a million of us engaged in snatching his sceptre from him." His +pen, however, was wasting its breath when it attempted to convince a +Frenchman of that day that his countrymen did not owe their liberties +solely to him. If the French had not been too generous and well-bred to +remind him of the millions of livres obtained by him from the French King +for the support of the American cause, he might have found it more +difficult to deny that he was the real captor of Cornwallis. + +How heartily Franklin hated disputation we have already had some occasion +to see. This aversion is repeatedly expressed in the _Autobiography_. +Referring to his arguments with Collins, he tells us in one place that the +disputatious turn of mind + + is apt to become a very bad habit, making people often + extremely disagreeable in company by the contradiction + that is necessary to bring it into practice; and + thence, besides souring and spoiling the conversation, + is productive of disgusts and perhaps enmities where + you may have occasion for friendship. + +In another place, he has this to say of the contentious Governor Morris, +one of the Colonial governors of Pennsylvania: + + He had some reason for loving to dispute, being + eloquent, an acute sophister, and, therefore, generally + successful in argumentative conversation. He had been + brought up to it from a boy, his father, as I have + heard, accustoming his children to dispute with one + another for his diversion, while sitting at table after + dinner; but I think the practice was not wise; for, in + the course of my observation, these disputing, + contradicting, and confuting people are generally + unfortunate in their affairs. They get victory + sometimes, but they never get good will, which would be + of more use to them. + +The same thought is stated in a letter from Franklin to Robert Morris in +which the former told the latter that he would see, on comparing a letter +which Franklin had written, with the answer, that, if he had replied, which +he could easily have done, a dispute might have arisen out of it, in which, +if he had got the better, he should perhaps have got nothing else. + +Facetious and agreeable as he was, he was likewise free from the unsocial +habit of monopolizing conversation: + + The great secret of succeeding in conversation, [he + declared], is to admire little, to hear much; always to + distrust our own reason, and sometimes that of our + friends; never to pretend to wit, but to make that of + others appear as much as possibly we can; to hearken to + what is said, and to answer to the purpose. + +Nor, in making or borrowing these just observations, was Franklin like +Carlyle who has been wittily said to have preached the doctrine of silence +in thirty volumes. What he preached in these respects, he practised. + + He was friendly and agreeable in conversation [Miss + Logan tells us], which he suited to his company, + appearing to wish to benefit his hearers. I could + readily believe that he heard nothing of consequence + himself but what he turned to the account he desired, + and in his turn profited by the conversation of others. + +It is hardly just to Franklin, however, to portray his social character +negatively. The truth is, as the extracts from his correspondence have +clearly enough shown, he was one of the most companionable and one of the +kindest and most sympathetic and affectionate of human beings. He detested +wrangling and discord. He had no patience with malice, and refused to allow +the _Pennsylvania Gazette_ to be made a vehicle for detraction. To tell a +chronic grumbler that he was hurt by his "voluminous complaints," or to +write to a friend that he would have sent him a longer letter but for the +coming in of a _bavard_ who had worried him till evening was about as close +as he ever got to fretfulness. There is testimony to the effect that he +never uttered a hasty or angry word to any member of his household, servant +or otherwise. Even where he had strong reasons for resentment, he was +remarkably just, generous and forgiving. Speaking in the _Autobiography_ of +the manner in which he had been deceived by Governor Keith, he had only +these mild words of reproof for him: + + He wish'd to please everybody; and, having little to + give, he gave expectations. He was otherwise an + ingenious, sensible man, a pretty good writer, and a + good governor for the people, tho' not for his + constituents, the proprietaries, whose instructions he + sometimes disregarded. Several of our best laws were of + his planning and passed during his administration. + +When Bradford was Postmaster, he refused to allow his post-riders to carry +any newspaper but his own. When the tables were turned, and Franklin was in +the position as Postmaster himself to shut out every publication from the +mails except his _Gazette_, he declined to retaliate on Bradford's +meanness. Drained of money, as he was by Ralph, when they were in London +together, he nevertheless summed up the situation in the _Autobiography_ +with the charitable statement: "I lov'd him, notwithstanding, for he had +many amiable qualities." If there was any person for whom Franklin +entertained, and had just cause to entertain, a bitter feeling of contempt +and dislike, it was Thomas Penn. Yet, when Lady Penn solicited his +assistance, for the protection of her interests in Pennsylvania, after the +Proprietary Government in that Province had collapsed with the royal +authority, he did all that he could properly do to aid her. + +He was always ready for a friendly game of cribbage, cards or chess. Though +entirely too temperate to indulge any physical appetite to excess, he was +not insensible to the pleasures of the table in his later years. Wine, too, +he relished sufficiently to thank God for it liturgically in his youth, and +to consume a second bottle of it at times in middle age with the aid of his +friend "Straney." When Col. Henry Bouquet was looking forward to a hot +summer in Charleston, he wrote to him that he did all that he could for his +relief, by recommending him to an ingenious physician of his acquaintance, +who knew the rule of making cool, weak, refreshing punch, not inferior to +the nectar of the gods. It would not do, of course, to accept too literally +the song in which Franklin exalted Bacchus at the expense of Venus, or the +Anacreontic letter to the Abbé Morellet, in which wine was extolled as if +it were all milk of our Blessed Lady. But these convivial effusions of his +pen nevertheless assist us in arriving at a correct interpretation of his +character. + +He was fond of music also, and was something of a musician himself. He +could play on the harp, the guitar and the violin, and he improved the +armonica, which acquired some temporary repute. His interest in this +musical instrument owed its birth to the melodious sounds which a member of +the Royal Society, Mr. Delavel, happened to produce in his presence by +rubbing his fingers on the edges of bowls, attuned to the proper notes by +the different measures of water that they contained. It was upon the +armonica that Franklin played at the social gatherings under M. Brillon's +roof which he called his Opera, and to which such lively references are +made in the letters that passed between Madame Brillon and himself. The +advantages of the instrument, he wrote to Giambatista Beccaria, were that +its tones were incomparably sweet beyond those of any other; that they +could be swelled and softened at pleasure by stronger or weaker pressures +of the fingers, and continued to any length; and that the instrument, being +once well tuned, never again required tuning. + +Blend with all this the happy disposition, which led Franklin to declare in +his eighty-second year that he comforted himself with the reflection that +only three incurable diseases, the gout, the stone, and old age, had fallen +to his share, and that they had not yet deprived him of his natural +cheerfulness, his delight in books, and enjoyment of social conversation, +and we can form some adequate idea of what he brought to intercourse with +his fellow-creatures. Only about two weeks before his death he wrote to +Jane Mecom from his death-bed: + + I do not repine at my malady, though a severe one, when + I consider how well I am provided with every + convenience to palliate it, and to make me comfortable + under it; and how many more horrible evils the human + body is subject to; and what a long life of health I + have been blessed with, free from them all. + +In his _Proposals Relating to Education_, he dwelt upon the importance of +"that _Benignity of Mind_, which shows itself in _searching for_ and +_seizing_ every Opportunity _to serve_ and _to oblige_; and is the +Foundation of what is called Good Breeding; highly useful to the Possessor, +and most agreeable to all." This benignity of mind belonged to him in an +eminent degree. The grape vines that he procured for his friend Quincy at +the cost of so much trouble to himself were but one of the ten thousand +proofs that he gave his friends of his undiminished affection and unselfish +readiness to serve them. Throughout his whole life, he had a way of keeping +friendship fresh by some thoughtful gift or act of kindness. Books, +pamphlets, writing materials, seeds of many descriptions, candles, hams, +American nuts and dried apples, even choice soap, were among the articles +with which he reminded his friends that he had not forgotten them. + + The Box not being full [he wrote to Collinson], I have + put in a few more of our Candles which I recommend for + your particular Use when you have Occasion to read or + write by Night; they give a whiter Flame than that of + any other kind of Candle, and the Light is more like + Daylight than any other Light I know; besides they need + little or no Snuffing, and grease nothing. There is + still a little Vacancy at the End of the Box, so I'll + put in a few Cakes of American Soap made of Myrtle Wax, + said to be the best Soap in the World for Shaving or + Washing fine Linnens etc. Mrs. Franklin requests your + Daughter would be so good as to accept 3 or 4 Cakes of + it, to wash your Grandson's finest Things with. + +In a letter to Bartram, who had informed him that his eye sight was +failing, Franklin surmises that this good and dear old friend did not have +spectacles that suited him. + + Therefore [he said] I send you a complete set, from + number one to thirteen, that you may try them at your + ease; and, having pitched on such as suit you best at + present, reserve those of higher numbers for future + use, as your eyes grow still older; and with the lower + numbers, which are for younger people, you may oblige + some other friends. My love to good Mrs. Bartram and + your children. + +Afterwards, he sends to Bartram several sorts of seed and the English medal +which had been awarded to him for his botanical achievements. And with them +went also one of the compliments in which his urbanity abounded. Alluding +to the medal, he says, "It goes in a Box to my Son Bache, with the Seeds. I +wish you Joy of it. Notwithstanding the Failure of your Eyes, you write as +distinctly as ever." + +"Please to accept a little Present of Books, I send by him, curious for the +Beauty of the Impression," he wrote to Benjamin Vaughan, when Temple was on +the point of visiting England. One of his last gifts was a collection of +books to Abdiel Holmes, the father of Oliver Wendell Holmes. In addition to +the gifts that he made to his friends, and the numerous commissions that he +executed for them, when he was in London, he was prompt to let them feel +that they could always be certain of his sympathy in every respect that +affected their prosperity or happiness for good or for evil. In one of his +letters, he assures Jared Eliot that, if he should send any of his steel +saws to Philadelphia for sale, the writer would not be wanting, where his +recommendation might be of service. When at Passy, he wrote to George +Whatley for a copy of his "excellent little Work," _The Principles of +Trade_. "I would get it translated and printed here," he said. The same +generous impulse led him to write to Robert Morris, when Morris was +acquiring his reputation as "The Financier," "No one but yourself can enjoy +your growing reputation more than I do." Often as he was honored both at +home and abroad by institutions of learning, it is safe to say that no +honor that he ever received afforded him more pleasure than he experienced +when the degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred at his instance by the +University of Edinburgh upon Dr. Samuel Cooper. + +In no respect, however, did Franklin commend himself more signally to the +affection of his friends than in the notice that he took of their children. +His relations to some of these children were closely akin to those of +adoption. To John Hughes, Josiah Quincy, Henry Laurens and de Chaumont, he +wrote at one time or another referring to their "valuable" sons, and +filling their bosoms with the parental joy that his commendation could not +fail to excite. + +In these attributes of mind, character and nature can readily be found, we +think, the explanation of that capacity for winning and retaining friends +which made the life of Franklin as mellow as a ripe peach. The most +important of them in a social sense lead us, of course, simply to the +statement that he was far more beloved than most men are because he was +himself influenced far more than most men are by the spirit of love. His +sympathy and affection were given to men in gross, and they were given to +men in detail. His heart was capacious enough to take in the largest +enterprises of human benevolence, but, unlike the hearts of many +philanthropists and reformers, it was not so intensely preoccupied with +them as to have no place for + + That best portion of a good man's life,-- + His little, nameless, unremembered acts + Of Kindness and of Love. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] In his _True Benjamin Franklin_, p. 163, Sydney George Fisher makes +these statements: "In a letter written to Mrs. Stevenson in London, while +he (Franklin) was envoy to France, he expresses surprise that some of the +London tradespeople still considered him their debtor for things obtained +from them during his residence there some years before, and he asks Mrs. +Stevenson, with whom he had lodged, how his account stands with her.... He +appears to have overdrawn his account with Hall, for there is a manuscript +letter in the possession of Mr. Howard Edwards, of Philadelphia, written by +Hall, March 1, 1770, urging Franklin to pay nine hundred and ninety-three +pounds which had been due for three years." What Franklin's letter to Mrs. +Stevenson, which is dated Jan. 25, 1779, states is that he had been told +after reaching France that Mr. Henley, the linen-draper, had said that, +when the former left England for America, he had gone away in his debt. The +letter questions whether Henley ever made such a statement, asks Mrs. +Stevenson to let the writer know the meaning of it all, and adds: "I +thought he had been fully paid, and still think so, and shall, till I am +assur'd of the contrary." The account that the letter asks of Mrs. +Stevenson was probably for the shipping charges on the white cloth suit, +sword and saddle, which had been forwarded, as the letter shows, to +Franklin at Passy by Mrs. Stevenson. Or it may have well been for expense +incurred by Mrs. Stevenson in performing some similar office for him. For +instance, when he was on the point of leaving England in 1775, he wrote to +a friend on the continent that, if he had purchased a certain book for the +writer, Mrs. Stevenson, in whose hands he left his little affairs till his +return, which he proposed, God willing, in October, would pay the draft for +it. + +A letter from Franklin to Mrs. Stevenson, dated July 17, 1775, shows that +there had been mutual accounts between them during his long and familiar +intercourse with her under the Craven Street roof. With this letter, he +incloses an order for a sum of money that she had intrusted to him for +investment, and also an order for £260 more, "supposing," he says, "by the +Sketch Mr. Williams made of our Accts. that I may owe you about that Sum." +"When they are finally settled," he further says, "we shall see where the +Ballance lies, and easily rectify it." If the account in question had any +connection with these accounts the unliquidated nature of the latter, the +abruptness with which Franklin was compelled to leave England in 1775, +coupled with his expectation of returning, the troubled years which +followed and the difficulty of finally settling detailed accounts, when the +parties to them are widely separated, furnish a satisfactory explanation of +the delay in settlement. If Franklin did not pay a balance claimed from him +by Hall on the settlement of their partnership accounts, after the +expiration of the partnership in 1766, it was doubtless because of his own +copyright counter-claim to which we have already referred in our text. + +[2] In recent years there has been a tendency to disparage the merits of +Henry Laurens. The Hales in their _Franklin in France_ speak of him "as a +very worthy, but apparently very inefficient, member of the Commission." In +his admirable prolegomena to the _Diplomatic Correspondence of the American +Revolution_, which is well calculated to excite the regret that lawyers do +not oftener bring the professional habit of weighing evidence to bear upon +historical topics, Dr. Francis Wharton says: "The influence he exerted in +the formation of the treaty was but slight, and his attitude as to the mode +of its negotiation and as to its leading provisions so uncertain as to +deprive his course in respect to it of political weight." Dr. Wharton also +reaches the conclusion that Henry Laurens was deficient, in critical +moments, both in sagacity and resolution. On the other hand Moses Coit +Tyler in his _Literary History of the American Revolution_ declares that, +coming at last upon the arena of national politics, Laurens was soon +recognized for what he was, "a trusty, sagacious, lofty, imperturbable +character." In another place in the same work, Tyler speaks of the +"splendid sincerity, virility, wholesomeness and competence of this +man--himself the noblest Roman of them all--the unsurpassed embodiment of +the proudest, finest, wittiest, most efficient, and most chivalrous +Americanism of his time." And in still another place in the same work the +_Narrative of the Capture of Henry Laurens_ is described "as a modest and +fascinating story of an heroic episode in the history of the Revolution, a +fragment of autobiography fit to become a classic in the literature of a +people ready to pay homage to whatever is magnanimous, exquisite and +indomitable in the manly character." To anyone familiar with the whole +conduct of Laurens in the Tower and the other facts upon which Dr. Wharton +based his judgment as to his sagacity and firmness at trying conjunctures, +these statements of Tyler are to a certain extent mere academic puffery. We +see no reason, however, to shade the character that we have ascribed to +Laurens in the text. Writing to Franklin about him after his release from +the Tower, John Adams said: "I had vast pleasure in his conversation; for I +found him possessed of the most exact judgment concerning our enemies, and +of the same noble sentiments in all things which I saw in him in Congress." +And some eighteen months later Franklin wrote to Laurens himself in terms +as strong as that he should ever look on his friendship as an honor to him. + +[3] The Abbé Morellet in his Memoirs gives us very much the same impression +of the social characteristics of Franklin that Cutler does. "His +conversation was exquisite--a perfect good nature, a simplicity of manners, +an uprightness of mind that made itself felt in the smallest things, an +extreme gentleness, and, above all, a sweet serenity that easily became +gayety." But this was Franklin when he was certain of his company. "He +conversed only with individuals," John Adams tells us, "and freely only +with confidential friends. In company he was totally silent." If we may +judge by the few specimens reserved by the Diary of Arthur Lee, the Diary +of John Baynes, an English barrister, and Hector St. John, the author of +_Letters from an American Farmer_, the grave talk of Franklin was as good +as his conversation in its livelier moods. After a call with Baynes upon +Franklin at Passy, Sir Samuel Romilly wrote in his Journal: "Of all the +celebrated persons whom in my life I have chanced to see, Dr. Franklin, +both from his appearance and his conversation, seemed to me the most +remarkable. His venerable patriarchal appearance, the simplicity of his +manner and language, and the novelty of his observations, at least the +novelty of them at that time to me, impressed me with an opinion of him as +one of the most extraordinary men that ever existed." + +[4] The lack of generous fare imputed by the Parisians to the table of Lord +Stormont was in keeping with the hopelessly rigid and bigoted nature +revealed by his dispatches when in France. Writing from Paris on Dec. 11, +1776, to Lord Weymouth, he says of Franklin: "Some people think that either +some private dissatisfaction or despair of success have brought him into +this country. I can not but suspect that he comes charged with a secret +commission from the Congress, and as he is a subtle, artful man, and void +of all truth, he will in that case use every means to deceive, will avail +himself of the general ignorance of the French, to paint the situation of +the rebels in the falsest colours, and hold out every lure to the +ministers, to draw them into an open support of that cause. He has the +advantage of several intimate connexions here, and stands high in the +general opinion. In a word, my Lord, I look upon him as a dangerous engine, +and am very sorry that some English frigate did not meet with him by the +way." In another letter to Lord Weymouth, dated Apr. 16, 1777, Lord +Stormont declared that he was thoroughly convinced that few men had done +more than Franklin to poison the minds of the Americans, or were more +totally unworthy of his Majesty's mercy. + +[5] It was Balzac who said that the _canard_ was a discovery of +Franklin--the inventor of the lightning rod, the hoax, and the republic. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +Franklin as a Man of Business + + +When some one said to Erskine that punning was the lowest kind of wit, he +replied that the statement was true, because punning was the foundation of +all wit. + +The business career of Franklin did not move upon such an exalted plane as +his scientific or political career, but it was the basis on which the +entire superstructure of his renown as a philosopher and a statesman was +built up; inasmuch as it was his early release from pecuniary cares which +enabled him to apply himself with single-minded devotion to electrical +experiments, and to accept at the hands of the people of Pennsylvania the +missions to England which opened up the wider horizon of his postmeridian +life. Quite apart, however, from the scientific and political reputation, +to which his material success smoothed the way, his business career has an +intrinsic interest of its own. In itself alone, when the limited +opportunities afforded by Colonial conditions for the accumulation of a +fortune are considered, it is a remarkable illustration of the extent to +which sleepless energy and wise conduct rise superior to the most +discouraging circumstances. Comparatively few young men aspire to be +philosophers or statesmen, but almost every young man of merit finds +himself under the necessity of striving for a pecuniary independence or at +any rate for a pecuniary livelihood. How this object can be most +effectually accomplished, is the problem, above all others in the world, +the most importunate; and the effort to solve it from generation to +generation is one of the things that invest human existence with perpetual +freshness. To a young man, involved in the hopes and anxieties of his first +struggles for a foothold in the world, the history of Franklin, as a +business man, could not but be full of inspiration, even if it had not +flowered into higher forms of achievement, and were not reflected in +publications of rare literary value. But, putting altogether out of sight +the great fame acquired by Franklin in scientific and political fields, a +peculiar vividness is imparted to his business career by other +circumstances which should not be overlooked. His main calling was that of +a printer, a vocation of unusual importance and influence in a free +community. "I, Benjamin Franklin, of Philadelphia, printer, late Minister +Plenipotentiary from the United States of America to the Court of France, +now President of the State of Pennsylvania," is the way in which he +describes himself in his will executed less than two years before his +death. And from that day to this, upon one memorable occasion or another, +guilds of printers on both sides of the Atlantic have acclaimed him as +little less than the patron saint of their craft. + +Two of his commercial enterprises were the _Pennsylvania Gazette_, the most +readable newspaper of Colonial America, and _Poor Richard's Almanac_, the +only almanac that has ever attained the rank of literature. And finally the +story of Franklin's business vicissitudes and the fortune, that he +ultimately won, has been pictured with incomparable distinctness in the +fascinating _Autobiography_. There he has set forth, as no other man with +such lowly beginnings has had the genius to set forth, the slow, painful +progress of a printer and merchant, under harsh and rigid conditions, from +poverty to wealth. That fortune cannot be won under such circumstances +except by the exercise of untiring industry, pinching frugality and +unceasing vigilance, but that, with good health, good character, unquailing +courage and due regard to Father Abraham's harangue, every man can conquer +adversity, is the moral which the _Autobiography_ has for the youth who has +no inheritance but his own hands or brain. It is sad to reflect how much +more impressive and stimulating this moral would be, if the _Autobiography_ +did not also disagreeably remind us that pecuniary ideals subject human +character to many peculiar temptations of their own, and that, as the +result of the destructive competition, which extends even to the sapling +struggling in the thick set copse for its share of light and air, the +success of one man in business is too often founded upon the ruins of that +of another. + +The business life of Franklin began when he was ten years old. At that age, +he was taken from Mr. Brownell's school in Boston, and set to the task at +the Blue Ball, his father's shop, of "cutting wick for the candles, filling +the dipping mold and the molds for cast candles, attending the shop, going +of errands, etc." At this he continued until he was twelve years of age, +but his duties were so distasteful to him that his father feared that, +unless he could find some more congenial occupation for him, he would run +off to sea. To avert this danger, Josiah sometimes took Benjamin about with +him, and showed him joiners, bricklayers, turners, braziers and other +artisans at their several trades in the hope of awakening an inclination in +him for one of them. The walks were not unprofitable to the son. + + It has ever since [he says in the _Autobiography_] been + a pleasure to me to see good workmen handle their + tools; and it has been useful to me, having learnt so + much by it as to be able to do little jobs myself in my + house when a workman could not readily be got, and to + construct little machines for my experiments, while + the intention of making the experiment was fresh and + warm in my mind. + +After this circuit of the various handicrafts, Josiah decided to make a +cutler of Benjamin, and he placed him on probation with Samuel Franklin, a +cutler, and a son of Josiah's brother, Benjamin. But Samuel thought that he +should be paid a fee for instructing his cousin, and the suggestion was so +displeasing to Josiah that he took the lad back to his own home. He +doubtless felt that Samuel might have remembered whose roof it was that had +sheltered his father when the latter first came over from England to +Boston. + +The real inclination, however, that Benjamin discovered at this period of +his life was for books. His father observed it, and decided to make a +printer of him, and it was when James, an older son of Josiah, returned +from England, with a press and letters, to set up as a printer at Boston, +that Benjamin was finally persuaded to enter into indentures of +apprenticeship with him. He did not yield at once, because, while he +preferred the business of a printer to that of a tallow chandler, the salt +of the sea was still in his blood. Under the provisions of the indentures, +he was to serve as his brother's apprentice, until he was twenty-one years +of age, but he was to be allowed the wages of a journeyman during the last +year of the apprenticeship. It was a fortunate thing for the apprentice +that he should have become bound to a master, who had been trained for his +craft in London, and the extraordinary skill which he early acquired as a +printer was probably due in part to this circumstance. Among the +publications printed by James, while the apprenticeship lasted, were +Stoddard's _Treatise on Conversion_, Stone's _Short Catechism_ and _A +Prefatory Letter about Psalmody_. These publications were all of the kind +that Franklin afterwards came to regard as hopelessly dry pemmican. Other +publications, printed by James Franklin, during the same time, were +various New England sermons, _The Isle of Man, or Legal Proceedings in +Manshire against Sin_, an allegory, _A Letter from One in the Country to +his Friend in Boston_, _News from the Moon_, _A Friendly Check from a kind +Relation to the Chief Cannoneer_ and _A Word of Comfort to a Melancholy +Country_--all political pamphlets,--several papers on inoculation, and a +production bearing the quaint title _Hooped Petticoats Arraigned by the +Light of Nature and the Law of God_. But it was through a publication of a +very different nature from these that James Franklin has come to occupy his +position of prominence in the life of his apprentice. This publication was +the _New England Courant_, already mentioned above. Its first issue +appeared at Boston on August 21, 1721, and so bold were its pungent +comments upon the clergy and magistrates of the Colony that, within a year, +James Franklin was by the Council summoned before it for what it conceived +to be highly injurious reflections upon the civil authorities. The +reflections consisted in this: A letter from Newport in the _Courant_ for +June 11, 1722, stated that a piratical vessel had been seen off Block +Island, and that two vessels were being fitted out to pursue her. "We are +advised from Boston," was the conclusion of the letter, "that the +Government of the Massachusetts are fitting out a ship (The Flying Horse) +to go after the pirates, to be commanded by Captain Peter Papillon, and +'tis thought he will sail some time this month, wind and weather +permitting." The letter, of course, was fictitious, and but a mild piece of +satire in comparison with some of the prior utterances of the _Courant_. +But this time the magistracy of the Colony was too much exasperated by the +past misdemeanors of the _Courant_ to overlook such a gibe at the expense +of its activity. When questioned by the Council, James admitted that he was +the owner of the paper, but refused to disclose the name of the author of +the offensive letter. Benjamin was questioned, too, and united in the +refusal. This was excusable in him as it was a point of honor for an +apprentice not to betray his master's secrets, but James had no such plea +behind which to shelter himself. Indeed, his bearing before the Council +appears to have been too haughty to warrant the idea that he was much +concerned about bringing forward any sort of defence. The examination +resulted in a decision by the Council that the letter was "a high affront +to the Government" and an order to the Sheriff to commit James to the +Boston Jail. + +A week in jail was sufficient to bring James a whining suppliant to the +feet of his oppressors. At the end of that time, he addressed an humble +petition to the Council, acknowledging his folly in affronting the civil +government, and his indecent behavior, when arraigned for it, and praying +for forgiveness and less rigorous confinement. The petition was granted, +but, when he was released, he had been a whole month in durance. In the +meantime, however, Benjamin, who had attracted the attention of his brother +and the group of writers, who contributed to the columns of the _Courant_, +by a sprightly series of letters signed Silence Dogood, of which we shall +say something hereafter, had been conducting the publication, and, with the +aid of his literary coadjutors, assailing the proceedings of the Council in +prose and verse. These attacks continued for six months after James was +released, and were borne by the Council with a supineness which was +probably due to the fear of exciting popular sympathy with the _Courant_ as +a champion of free speech. But in the issue of the _Courant_ for January +14, 1723, appeared an article so caustic that the Council could contain +itself no longer. It was headed by the well known lines of _Hudibras_, +which are significant of the spirit in which the youthful Franklin +confronted the whole system of Puritan Asceticism: + + In the wicked there's no vice, + Of which the saints have not a spice; + And yet that thing that's pious in + The one, in t'other is a sin. + Is't not ridiculous and nonsense, + A saint should be a slave to conscience? + +The performance has so many earmarks of Franklin's peculiar modes of +thought and speech that it is hard not to ascribe its authorship to him +without hesitation. Besides thrusts at the Governor and other public +functionaries, it lashed the pietists of the place and time with unsparing +severity. Many persons, it declared, who seemed to be more than "ordinarily +religious," were often found to be the greatest cheats imaginable. They +would dissemble and lie, snuffle and whiffle, and, if it were possible, +would overreach and defraud all who dealt with them. + + For my own part [the writer further declared] when I + find a man full of religious cant and pellavar, I + presently suspect him to be a knave. Religion is, + indeed, the _principal thing_; but too much of it is + worse than none at all. The world abounds with knaves + and villains; but of all knaves, the _religious knave_ + is the worst; and villainies acted under the cloak of + religion are the most execrable. Moral honesty, though + it will not of itself, carry a man to heaven, yet I am + sure there is no going thither _without it_. And + however such men, of whom I have been speaking, may + palliate their wickedness, they will find that + _publicans and harlots will enter the kingdom of heaven + before themselves_. + +The same day, on which this issue of the _Courant_ appeared, the Council +passed an order, denouncing it in scathing terms, and appointing a +committee of three persons to consider and report what was proper for the +Court to do with regard to it. It did not take the committee long to +report. They condemned the _Courant_ in stern language as an offence to +church and state, and "for precaution of the like offence for the future," +humbly proposed that "James Franklin, the printer and publisher thereof, +be strictly forbidden by this Court to print or publish the New England +_Courant_, or any other pamphlet or paper of the like nature, except it be +first supervised by the Secretary of this Province." The report was +approved, and followed by an order, carrying its recommendations into +execution. But the proprietor of the _Courant_ and his literary retainers +were equal to the crisis. They assembled at once, and resolved that the +paper should thenceforth be issued in the name of Benjamin, at that time a +boy of seventeen. At the same time, to retain his hold on his apprentice +until the expiration of his term, James resorted to a knavish expedient. + + The contrivance [the _Autobiography_ tells us] was that + my old indenture should be return'd to me, with a full + discharge on the back of it, to be shown on occasion, + but to secure to him the benefit of my service, I was + to sign new indentures for the remainder of the term, + which were to be kept private. A very flimsy scheme it + was; however, it was immediately executed. + +As the final step in the fraud, the next issue of the _Courant_ announced +that the late publisher of the paper, finding that so many inconveniences +would arise by his taking the manuscripts and public news to be supervised +by the Secretary as to render his carrying it on unprofitable, had entirely +dropped the undertaking. The _Courant_ itself, however, went merrily along +in its old evil courses, despite the fact that the same issue, speaking +through its new management, as if it were an entire stranger to its guilty +past, deprecated newspaper license in the strongest terms, looked forward +to a future of genial good-humor only, and even gave expression to such a +deceitful sentiment as this: "Pieces of pleasancy and mirth have a secret +charm in them to allay the heats and tumors of our spirits, and to make a +man forget his restless resentments." These debonair pretences were hardly +uttered before they were laid aside, and the attacks on the clergy and +their sanctimonious adherents renewed with as much wit and vivacity as +formerly, if not more; and so eagerly read were the lampoons of the +_Courant_ by the population of Boston, which, perhaps, after all, +stiff-necked as it was, did not differ from most urban populations in +containing more sinners than saints, that, under the management of "Old +Janus," the mask behind which young Franklin concealed his features, the +_Courant_ was in a few months able to raise its price from ten to twelve +shillings a year. It was a lawless sheet, but, in its contest against +arbitrary power and muffled speech, it was swimming with a current that was +to gather up additional elements of irresistible volume and force at every +stage of its journey towards the open main of present American political +ideas. + +In the management of the _Courant_, Franklin had scored his first business +success. James might well have made his gifted apprentice his co-partner; +but, whether from jealousy, the sauciness of the apprentice, mere choler, +or the domineering temper that we should naturally expect in a man who +meekly kissed the hand of tyranny after a single week in jail, he was far +from doing anything of the sort. Smarting under the snubs and blows +administered to him by a brother, from whose fraternal relationship to him +he thought that he was entitled to receive somewhat more than the ordinary +indulgence shown an apprentice, Benjamin, to use his own words, took upon +him to assert his freedom; presuming that James would not venture to +produce the new indentures. When James found that his apprentice was about +to leave him, he prevented him from securing employment with any other +Boston printer by warning them all against him. The consequence was that +the boy, between his reputation as "a young genius that had a turn for +libelling and satyr," the horror with which he was pointed at by good +people as an infidel or atheist, the lowering eye of the Provincial +Government, and the rancor with which he was pursued by his brother, found +himself under a cloud of opprobrium from which he could not escape except +by making his home in another place than Boston. Knowing that his father +would detain him, if he learnt that he was about to go elsewhere, he sold +enough of his books to obtain a small sum of money for his journey, and +contrived, through the management of Collins, to be secretly taken on board +of a sloop on the eve of sailing for New York, under the pretence of his +being a young acquaintance of Collins, who had got a naughty girl with +child. The flight which followed has been narrated and pictured until it is +almost as well known as the exodus of the Old Testament. He would be a rash +writer, indeed, who imagined that he could tell that story over again in +any words except those of Franklin himself without dispelling a charm as +subtle as that which forbids a seashell to be removed from the seashore. +How, with a fair wind, he found himself, a boy of seventeen, in New +York,[6] without a claim of friendship, acquaintance or recommendation upon +a human being in that town; how he fruitlessly applied for employment to +the only printer there, William Bradford, and was advised by him to go on +to Philadelphia; how, owing to an ugly squall, he was thirty hours on the +waters of New York Bay before he could make the Kill, without victuals, or +any drink except a bottle of filthy rum, and with no companion except his +boatman and a drunken Dutchman; how after breaking up a fever, brought on +by this experience, with copious draughts of cold water, he trudged on foot +all the way across New Jersey from Amboy to Burlington; stopping the first +day for the night at a poor inn, where travel-stained and drenched to the +skin by rain, he was in danger of being taken up as a runaway servant; +stopping the second day at an inn within eight or ten miles of Burlington, +kept by a Dr. Brown, an infidel vagabond, with a flavor of letters, and +arriving the next morning at Burlington, where a kindly old woman of whom +he had bought gingerbread, to eat on his way down the Delaware, gave him a +dinner of ox cheek with great good will, and accepted only a pot of ale in +return--all these things are told in the _Autobiography_ in words as well +known to the ordinary American boy as the prominent incidents of his own +life. And so also is the descent of the Delaware in the timely boat that +hove in sight as Benjamin was walking in the evening by the water-side at +Burlington on the day of his arrival there, and took him aboard, putting in +about midnight at Cooper's Creek for fear that it had passed in the +darkness the town which has since grown to be a vast city more luminous at +night than the heavens above it, and landing at Market Street, +Philadelphia, the next day, Sunday, at eight or nine o'clock. Here the +dirty, hungry wayfarer found himself in a land marked by many surprising +contrasts with the one from which he had fled. There was no biscuit to be +had in the town, nor could he even obtain a three-penny loaf at the baker +shop on Second Street; but for three pence he purchased to his astonishment +three great puffy rolls, so large that, after sating his hunger with one of +them, as he walked up Market Street as far as Fourth Street, and then back +by other streets for a drink of river-water to the Market Street Wharf, he +still had the other two left to give to a mother and child, who had come +down the Delaware with him, and were on their way to a more distant point. +But, doubtless, of all the things in that unfamiliar place, the one that +seemed to him most unlike his former home was the serene, mild face that +religion wore. It must have been like mollifying oil poured into a wound +for him to find himself in such an edifice as the Great Quaker meeting +house near the market with a placid, clean-dressed concourse of +worshippers, whose brooding silence, so unlike the strident voices of the +Saints, with whom he had been warring in Boston, soon lulled him to sleep; +a sleep not so deep or so long, however, that the youth, exhausted by the +labor of rowing, and the want of rest, could not, when diverted from the +sign of the disreputable Three Mariners, and directed to the sign of the +more reputable Crooked Billet, in Water Street, by a friendly Quaker guide, +consume in profound slumber, with a brief intermission for supper, the +entire time between dinner and the next morning. He was too young yet to +need to be reminded by any Poor Richard that there is sleeping enough in +the grave, and the next morning was to see the beginning of a struggle, +first for subsistence, and then for a fortune, hard as a muscle tense with +the utmost strain that it can bear. + +With the return of day, he made himself as tidy as he could without the aid +of his clothes chest, which was coming around by sea, and repaired to the +printing shop of Andrew Bradford, to whom he had been referred by William +Bradford, the father of Andrew, in New York. When he arrived at the shop, +he found the father there. By travelling on horseback, he had reached +Philadelphia before Benjamin. By him Benjamin was introduced to Andrew +Bradford, who received him civilly, and gave him breakfast but told him +that he was not at present in need of a hand, having recently secured one. +There was another printer in town, however, he said, lately set up, one +Keimer, who perhaps might employ him. If not, Benjamin was welcome to lodge +at his house, and he would give him a little work to do now and then until +he could find steadier employment for him. + +Benjamin then went off to see Keimer; and William Bradford accompanied him; +for what purpose soon became apparent enough. "Neighbor," said Bradford, "I +have brought to see you a young man of your business; perhaps you may want +such a one." Keimer asked Benjamin a few questions, put a composing stick +in his hands to test his competency, and declared that he would employ him +soon though he had just then nothing for him to do. Then taking old +Bradford, whom he had never seen before, and whose relationship to Andrew +he never suspected, to be a friendly fellow townsman, he opened up his +plans and prospects to his visitors, and announced that he expected to get +the greater part of the printing business in Philadelphia into his hands. +This announcement prompted William Bradford to draw him on "by artful +questions, and starting little doubts, to explain all his views, what +interest he reli'd on, and in what manner he intended to proceed." "I," +observes Franklin, "who stood by and heard all, saw immediately that one of +them was a crafty old sophister, and the other a mere novice. Bradford left +me with Keimer, who was greatly surpris'd when I told him who the old man +was." + +There was room enough in Philadelphia for such an expert craftsman as +Benjamin. Andrew Bradford had not been bred to the business of printing, +and was very illiterate, and Keimer, though something of a scholar, was a +mere compositor, and knew nothing of presswork. His printing outfit +consisted of an old shattered press, and one small, worn-out font of +English letters. When Benjamin called on him, he was composing directly out +of his head an elegy on Aquila Rose, a worthy young Philadelphian who had +just died: + + What mournful accents thus accost mine ear, + What doleful echoes hourly thus appear! + What sighs from melting hearts proclaim aloud + The solemn mourning of this numerous crowd. + In sable characters the news is read, + Our Rose is withered, and our Eagle's fled, + In that our dear Aquila Rose is dead. + +These are a few of the many lines in which Keimer, disdaining ink-bottle +and quill, traced with his composing stick alone from birth to death the +life of his lost Lycidas. As there was no copy, and but one pair of cases, +and the threnody was likely to require all the letters that Keimer had, no +helper could be of any assistance to him. So Benjamin put the old press +into as good a condition as he could, and, promising Keimer to come back +and print off the elegy, as soon as it was transcribed into type from the +tablets of his brain, returned to Bradford's printing-house. Here he was +given a small task, and was lodged and boarded until Keimer sent for him to +strike off his poem. While he had been away, Keimer had procured another +pair of cases, and had been employed to reprint a pamphlet; and upon this +pamphlet Benjamin was put to work. + +During the period of his employment by Keimer, an incident arose which gave +a decisive turn to his fortunes for a time. Happening to be at New Castle, +his brother-in-law, Robert Holmes, the master of a sloop that plied between +Boston and the Delaware River, heard that he was at Philadelphia, and wrote +to him, earnestly urging him to return to Boston. To this letter Benjamin +replied, thanking Holmes for his advice, but stating his reasons for +leaving Boston fully and in such a way as to convince him that the flight +from Boston was not so censurable as he supposed. The letter was shown by +Holmes to Sir William Keith, who read it, and was surprised when he was +told the age of the writer. Benjamin, he said, appeared to be a young man +of promising parts, and should, therefore, be encouraged, for the printers +at Philadelphia were wretched ones, and he did not doubt that, if Benjamin +would set up as a printer there, he would succeed. As to himself, he would +procure him the public printing and render him any other service in his +power. Before these circumstances were brought to the knowledge of +Benjamin, the Governor and Col. French of New Castle proceeded to look him +up, and one day, while he and Keimer were working together near the window +of the Keimer printing-office, they saw the pair coming across the street +in their fine clothes towards its door. As soon as they were heard at the +door, Keimer, assuming that they were calling upon him, ran down to greet +them, but the Governor inquired for Benjamin, walked upstairs, and, with a +condescension and politeness to which the youth was quite unaccustomed, +paid him many compliments, expressed a desire to be acquainted with him, +blamed him kindly for not making himself known to him, when Benjamin first +came to Philadelphia, and invited him to accompany him to the tavern where +he was going, he said, with Col. French to taste some excellent Madeira. + +"I," says Franklin, "was not a little surprised, and Keimer star'd like a +pig poison'd." But the invitation was accepted, and, at a tavern, at the +corner of Third Street, and over the Madeira, Keith suggested that the +youth should become a printer on his own account, and pointed out to him +the likelihood of his success; and both he and Col. French assured him that +he would have their interest and influence for the purpose of securing the +public printing in Pennsylvania and the three Lower Counties on the +Delaware. When Benjamin stated that he doubted whether his father would +assist him in the venture, Keith replied that he would give him a letter to +Josiah, presenting the advantages of the scheme, and that he did not doubt +that it would be effectual. The result of the conversation was a secret +understanding that Benjamin should return to Boston in the first available +vessel with Keith's letter, and, while he was awaiting this vessel, +Benjamin continued at work with Keimer as usual; Keith sending for him now +and then to dine with him, and conversing with him in the most affable, +familiar and friendly manner imaginable. + +Later a little vessel came along bound for Boston. With Keith's letter in +his possession, Benjamin took passage in her, and, after a dangerous voyage +of two weeks, found himself again in the city from which he had fled seven +months before. All the members of his family gave him a hearty welcome +except his brother James, but Josiah, after reading the Governor's letter, +and considering its contents for some days, expressed the opinion that he +must be a man of small discretion to think of setting up a boy in business +who wanted yet three years of being at man's estate. He flatly refused to +give his consent to the project, but wrote a civil letter to the Governor, +thanking him for the patronage that he had proffered Benjamin, and stating +his belief that his son was too young for such an enterprise. Nevertheless, +Josiah was pleased with the evidences of material success and standing that +his son had brought back with him from Philadelphia, and, when Benjamin +left Boston on his return to Philadelphia, it was with the approbation and +blessing of his parents, and some tokens, in the form of little gifts, of +their love, and with the promise, moreover, of help from Josiah, in case he +should not, by the time he reached the age of twenty-one, save enough money +by his industry and frugality to establish himself in business. + +When Benjamin arrived at Philadelphia, and communicated Josiah's decision +to Keith, the Governor was not in the least disconcerted. There was a great +difference in persons he was so kind as to declare. Discretion did not +always accompany years, nor was youth always without it. "And since he will +not set you up," he said to Benjamin, "I will do it myself. Give me an +inventory of the things necessary to be had from England, and I will send +for them. You shall repay me when you are able; I am resolv'd to have a +good printer here, and I am sure you must succeed." This, the +_Autobiography_ tells us, was uttered with such apparently heartfelt +cordiality that Benjamin did not entertain the slightest doubt of Keith's +sincerity, and, as he had kept, and was still keeping, his plans entirely +secret, there was no one more familiar with Keith's character than himself +to warn him that the actual value of Keith's promises was a very different +thing from their face value. Believing the Governor to be one of the best +men in the world to have thus unsolicited made such a generous offer to +him, Benjamin drew up an inventory calling for a small printing outfit of +the value of about one hundred pounds sterling, and handed it to him. It +met with his approval, but led him to ask whether it might not be of some +advantage for Benjamin to be on the spot in England to choose the type, and +to see that everything was good of its kind. Moreover, he suggested that, +when Benjamin was there, he might make some useful acquaintance, and +establish a profitable correspondence with book-sellers and stationers. To +the advantage of all this Benjamin could not but assent. "Then," said +Keith, "get yourself ready to go with Annis"; meaning the master of the +_London Hope_, the annual ship, which was the only one at that time plying +regularly between London and Philadelphia. + +Until Annis sailed, Benjamin continued in the employment of Keimer, whom he +still kept entirely in ignorance of his project, and was frequently at the +home of Keith. During this time, Keith's intention of establishing him in +business was always mentioned as a fixed thing, and it was understood that +he was to take with him letters of recommendation from Keith to a number of +the latter's friends in England besides a letter of credit from Keith to +supply him with the necessary money for buying the printing outfit and the +necessary printer's supplies. Before Annis' ship sailed, Benjamin +repeatedly called upon Keith for these letters at different times appointed +by him, but on each occasion their delivery was postponed to a subsequent +date. Thus things went on until the ship was actually on the point of +sailing. Then, when Benjamin called on Keith, to take his leave of him and +to receive the letters, the Governor's secretary, Dr. Bard, came out from +Keith and told him that the Governor was busily engaged in writing, but +would be at New Castle before the ship, and that there the letters would be +delivered. Upon the arrival of the ship at New Castle, Keith, true to his +word, was awaiting it, but, when Benjamin went to Keith's lodgings to get +the letters, the Governor's secretary again came out from him with a +statement by him that he was then absorbed in business of the utmost +importance, but that he would send the letters aboard. The message was +couched in highly civil terms, and was accompanied by hearty wishes that +Benjamin might have a good voyage, and speedily be back again. "I returned +on board," says Franklin in the _Autobiography_, "a little puzzled, but +still not doubting." At the very beginning of the voyage, Benjamin and his +graceless friend Ralph had an unusual stroke of good luck. Andrew Hamilton, +a famous lawyer of Philadelphia, who was accompanied by his son, afterwards +one of the Colonial Governors of Pennsylvania, Mr. Denham, a Quaker +merchant, and Messrs. Onion and Russell, the masters of the Principio Iron +Works in Cecil County, Maryland, had engaged the great cabin of the ship; +so that it looked as if Benjamin and Ralph, who were unknown to any of the +cabin passengers, were doomed to the obscurity and discomfort of the +steerage. But, while the ship was at New Castle, the elder Hamilton was +recalled to Philadelphia by a great fee in a maritime cause, and, just +before she sailed, Col. French came on board, and treated Benjamin with +such marked respect that he and Ralph were invited by the remaining cabin +passengers to occupy the cabin with them--an invitation which the two +gladly accepted. They had good reason to do so. The cabin passengers formed +a congenial company, the plenteous supply of provisions laid in by Andrew +Hamilton, with the stores to which they were added, enabled them to live +uncommonly well, and Mr. Denham contracted a lasting friendship for +Benjamin. The latter, however, had not lost sight of the letters from Keith +which had been so long on their way to his hands. As soon as he learnt at +New Castle that Col. French had brought the Governor's dispatches aboard, +he asked the captain for the letters that were to be under his care. The +captain said that all were put into the bag together, and that he could not +then come at them, but that, before they landed in England, Benjamin should +have the opportunity of picking them out. When the Channel was reached, the +captain was as good as his word, and Benjamin went through the bag; but no +letters did he find that were addressed in his care. He picked out six or +seven, however, that he thought from the handwriting might be the promised +letters, especially as one was addressed to Basket, the King's printer, and +another to some stationer. On the 24th day of December, 1724, the ship +reached London. The first person that Benjamin waited upon was the +stationer, to whom he delivered the letter addressed to him, with the +statement that it came from Governor Keith. "I don't know such a person," +the stationer said, but, on opening the letter, he exclaimed, "O! this is +from Riddlesden. I have lately found him to be a compleat rascal, and I +will have nothing to do with him, nor receive any letters from him." With +that he gave the letter back to Benjamin and turned on his heel to serve a +customer. Then it was that Benjamin, putting two and two together, began to +doubt Keith's sincerity, and looked up Mr. Denham, and told him what had +happened. There was not the least probability, Mr. Denham declared, that +Keith had written any letters for him. No one, he said, who knew the +Governor, trusted him in the slightest degree, and, as for his giving a +letter of credit to Benjamin, he had no credit to give. One advantage, +however, Benjamin reaped from the deception practised upon him. Both Mr. +Denham and himself as well as the stationer knew that Riddlesden was a +knave. Not to go further, Deborah's father by becoming surety for him had +been half ruined. His letter disclosed the fact that there was a scheme on +foot to the prejudice of Andrew Hamilton, and also the fact that Keith was +concerned in it with Riddlesden; so, when Hamilton came over to London +shortly afterwards, partly from ill will to Keith and Riddlesden, and +partly from good will to Hamilton, Benjamin adopted the advice of Mr. +Denham and waited on him, and gave him the letter. He thanked Benjamin +warmly, and from that time became his friend, to his very great advantage +on many future occasions. "I got his son once £500," notes the grateful +Franklin briefly in a foot-note of the _Autobiography_. + +By cozenage almost incredible, Benjamin, at the age of eighteen, had been +thus lured off to London; the London of Addison, Pope and Sir Isaac Newton. +Rather than confess the emptiness of his flattering complaisance Keith +preferred to rely upon the chance that, once in London, the youth would be +either unable or disinclined to return to his own native land. It would be +hard to say what might have become of him if he had not had the skill as a +printer which exemplified in a striking way the truth of two of the sayings +of Poor Richard, "He that hath a Trade hath an Estate" and "He that hath a +Calling, hath an Office of Profit and Honour." + +The most serious stumbling block to his advancement in London was the one +that he brought over seas with him, namely, Ralph himself, who had deserted +his wife and child in Philadelphia, and now let his companion know for the +first time that he never meant to return to that city. All the money that +Ralph had, when he left home, had been consumed by the expenses of the +voyage, but Benjamin was still the possessor of fifteen pistoles when the +voyage was over, and from this sum Ralph occasionally borrowed while he +was endeavoring to convert some of his high-flown ambitions into practical +realities. First, he applied for employment as an actor, only to be told by +Wilkes that he could never succeed on the stage, then he tried to induce +Roberts, a publisher in Paternoster Row, to establish a weekly periodical +like the _Spectator_, with himself as the Addison, on certain conditions to +which Roberts would not give his assent. Finally, he was driven to the +stress of seeking employment as a copyist for stationers and lawyers about +the Temple, but he could not find an opening for even such ignoble drudgery +as this. Soon all of Benjamin's pistoles were gone. But, in the meantime, +with his training as a printer, he had secured employment without +difficulty at Palmer's, a famous printing-house in Bartholomew Close, where +he remained for nearly a year. Here he labored pretty diligently, but with +Ralph as well as himself to maintain, and with the constant temptations to +expense, afforded by playhouses and other places of amusement, he was +unable to hoard enough money to pay his passage back to Philadelphia. + +For a time, after Ralph and himself arrived at London, they were +inseparable companions, occupying the same lodgings in Little Britain, the +home of bookstalls, and sharing the same purse. But when Ralph drifted off +into the country, all intercourse between the friends was brought to an end +by the overtures that Benjamin made to his mistress in his absence. It was +then that Benjamin, relieved of the burden which the pecuniary necessities +of Ralph had imposed on him, began to think of laying aside a little money, +and left Palmer's to work at Watts' near Lincoln's Inn Fields, a still more +important printing-house, where he was employed so long as he remained in +London. His reminiscences of this printing-house are among the most +interesting in the _Autobiography_. One episode during his connection with +it presents him to us with some of the lines of his subsequent maturity +plainly impressed on him. "I drank," he says, "only water; the other +workmen, near fifty in number, were great guzzlers of beer." When they +observed that his physical strength was superior to theirs, they wondered +that the Water-American, as they called him, should be stronger than they +who drank strong beer. A boy was incessantly running between an alehouse +and the printing-house for the purpose of keeping the latter supplied with +drink. Benjamin's pressmate drank every day a pint of beer before +breakfast, a pint at breakfast, with his bread and cheese, a pint between +breakfast and dinner, a pint at dinner, a pint in the afternoon about six +o'clock, and another pint when he had done his day's work. Franklin vainly +endeavored to convince him that the physical strength, produced by beer, +could only be in proportion to the grain or barley-flour dissolved in water +that the beer contained, that there was more flour in a pennyworth of +bread, and that, therefore, if he would eat that with a pint of water, it +would give him more strength than a quart of beer. As it was, he had four +or five shillings to pay out of his wages every Saturday night for muddling +liquor, and in this way he and his fellow-workmen kept themselves always +under. + +Benjamin began at Watts' as a pressman, but, after some weeks of service, +he was transferred by the master to the composing-room. There a toll of +five shillings for drink was demanded of him by the other compositors as +the price of his admission to their society. At first he refused to pay it, +as he had already paid a similar _bienvenu_ in the press-room, and the +master followed his refusal up by positively forbidding him to pay it; but +after a few weeks of recusancy he learnt how despotic a thing an inveterate +custom is. He was excommunicated for a while by all his fellow-workmen, and +could not leave the composing-room for even the briefest time without +having his sorts mixed or his pages transposed by the Chapel ghost, who +was said to have a deep grudge against all imperfectly initiated +compositors. Master or no master, he finally found himself forced to comply +with the custom and to pay the exaction, convinced as he became of the +folly of being on ill terms with those with whom one is bound to live +continually. Erelong his offence was forgotten, and his influence firmly +established among his fellow-compositors. It was prevailing enough to +enable him to propose some reasonable changes in the Chapel laws, and to +carry them through in the face of all opposition. At the same time, the +example of temperance, set by him, induced a great part of his companions +to give up their breakfast of beer, bread and cheese, and to supply +themselves from a neighboring public-house with a large porringer of hot +water-gruel, seasoned with butter and pepper, and crumbed with bread, for +the price of a pint of beer, namely, three half-pence. This made a more +comfortable as well as a cheaper breakfast, and one that left their heads +clear besides. Those of Benjamin's fellow-workmen whom he could not reclaim +fell into the habit of using his credit for the purpose of getting beer +when their _light_ at the alehouse, to use their own cant expression, was +out. To protect himself, he stood by the pay-table on Saturday night, and +collected enough from their wages to cover the sums for which he had made +himself responsible, amounting sometimes to as much as thirty shillings a +week. The loan of his credit in this way and his humor gave him an assured +standing in the composing-room. On the other hand, his steadiness--for he +never, he says, made a St. Monday--recommended him to the favor of his +master; and his uncommon quickness in composing enabled him to secure the +higher compensation which was paid for what would now be termed "rush +work." His situation was at this time very agreeable and his mind became +intently fixed upon saving as much of his wages as he could. + +Finding that his lodgings in Little Britain were rather remote from his +work, he obtained others in Duke Street, opposite the Romish Chapel, with a +widow, who had been bred a Protestant, but had been converted to +Catholicism by her husband, whose memory she deeply revered. It is a +pleasing face that looks out at us from the portrait painted of her by +Franklin in the _Autobiography_. She + + had lived much among people of distinction, and knew a + thousand anecdotes of them as far back as the time of + Charles the Second. She was lame in her knees with the + gout, and, therefore, seldom stirred out of her room, + so sometimes wanted company; and hers was so highly + amusing to me, that I was sure to spend an evening with + her whenever she desired it. Our supper was only half + an anchovy each, on a very little strip of bread and + butter, and half a pint of ale between us; but the + entertainment was in her conversation. My always + keeping good hours, and giving little trouble in the + family, made her unwilling to part with me; so that, + when I talk'd of a lodging I had heard of, nearer my + business, for two shillings a week, which, intent as I + now was on saving money, made some difference, she bid + me not think of it, for she would abate me two + shillings a week for the future, so I remained with her + at one shilling and six pence as long as I staid in + London. + +It was in the garret of this house that the nun mentioned by us in +connection with the religious opinions of Franklin passed her secluded +life. + +It was while he resided here that Wygate, a fellow-printer, made a proposal +to him that, if accepted, might have given a different direction to his +career. Drawn to Benjamin, who had taught him how to swim, by common +intellectual tastes, and by the admiration excited in him by Benjamin's +vigor and agility as a swimmer, he suggested to the latter that they should +travel all over Europe together, and support themselves as they went by the +exercise of their handicraft. Benjamin was disposed to adopt the +suggestion, but, when he mentioned it to his friend, Mr. Denham, upon whom +he was in the habit of calling, the latter disapproved of it, and advised +him to dismiss every thought from his mind except that of returning to +Pennsylvania, which he was about to do himself. Nay more, he told Benjamin +that he expected to take over a large amount of merchandise with him, and +to open a store in Philadelphia; and he offered to employ Benjamin as his +clerk to keep his books, when the latter had acquired a sufficient +knowledge of bookkeeping under his instruction, copy his letters, and +attend to the store. In addition, he promised that, as soon as Benjamin +should have the requisite experience, he would promote him by sending him +with a cargo of bread-stuffs to the West Indies, and would, moreover, +procure profitable commissions for him from others, and, if Benjamin made a +success of these opportunities, establish him in life handsomely. The +proposal was accepted by Benjamin. He was tired of London, remembered with +pleasure the happy months spent by him in Pennsylvania, and was desirous of +seeing it again. He agreed, therefore, at once, to become Mr. Denham's +clerk at an annual salary of fifty pounds, Pennsylvania money. This was +less than he was earning at the time as a compositor, but Mr. Denham's +offer held out the prospect of a better future on the whole to him. + +After entering into this agreement, Benjamin supposed that he was done with +printing forever. During the interval preceding the departure of Mr. Denham +and himself for America, he went about with his employer, when he was +purchasing goods, saw that the goods were packed properly for shipment, and +performed other helpful offices. After the stock of goods had been all +safely stored on shipboard, he was, to his surprise, sent for by Sir +William Wyndham, who had heard of his swimming exploits, and who offered to +pay him generously, if he would teach his two sons, who were about to +travel, how to swim; but the two youths had not yet come to town, and +Benjamin did not know just when he would sail; so he was compelled to +decline the invitation. The offer of Sir William, however, made him feel +that he might earn a good deal of money, were he to remain in England and +open a swimming school, and the reflection forced itself upon his attention +so strongly that he tells us in the _Autobiography_ that, if Sir William +had approached him earlier, he would probably not have returned to America +so soon. + +He left Gravesend for Philadelphia on July 23, 1726, after having been in +London for about eighteen months. During the greater part of this time, he +had worked hard, and spent but little money upon himself except in seeing +plays and for books. It was Ralph who had kept him straitened by borrowing +sums from him amounting in the whole to about twenty-seven pounds. "I had +by no means improv'd my fortune," Franklin tells us in the _Autobiography_, +"but I had picked up some very ingenious acquaintance, whose conversation +was of great advantage to me; and I had read considerably."[7] + +After a long voyage, he was again in Philadelphia, and Keith was now a +private citizen. When Benjamin met him on the street, he showed a little +shame at the sight of his dupe, but he passed on without saying anything. +Keimer seemed to have a flourishing business. He had moved into a better +house, and had a shop well supplied with stationery, plenty of type, and a +number of hands, though none of them were efficient. + +Mr. Denham opened a store in Water Street, and the merchandise brought over +with him was placed in it. Benjamin gave his diligent attention to the +business, studied accounts, and was in a little while an expert salesman. +But then came one of those sudden strokes of misfortune, which remind us on +what perfidious foundations all human hopes rest. Beginning with his +relations to Mr. Denham, Franklin narrates the circumstances in these +words: + + We lodg'd and boarded together; he counsell'd me as a + father, having a sincere regard for me. I respected and + loved him, and we might have gone on together very + happy, but, in the beginning of February, 1726/7, when + I had just pass'd my twenty-first year, we both were + taken ill. My distemper was a pleurisy, which very + nearly carried me off. I suffered a good deal, gave up + the point in my own mind, and was rather disappointed + when I found myself recovering, regretting, in some + degree, that I must now, some time or other, have all + that disagreeable work to do over again. I forget what + his distemper was; it held him a long time, and at + length carried him off. He left me a small legacy in a + nuncupative will, as a token of his kindness for me, + and he left me once more to the wide world; for the + store was taken into the care of his executors, and my + employment under him ended. + +Franklin did have all that disagreeable work to do over again, for it was +of a pleuritic abscess that he died in the end. Of Mr. Denham we cannot +take our leave without drawing upon the _Autobiography_ for an incident +which shows that he was one of the many good men whose friendship was given +so generously to Franklin. He was at one time a merchant at Bristol, and +failed in business. After compounding with his numerous creditors, he +migrated to America where he made a fortune in a few years. While he was +in England with Benjamin, he invited his former creditors to an +entertainment, and, when they were all seated, thanked them for the easy +terms on which they had compromised their claims against him. Duly thanked, +they supposed that there was nothing in store for them but the ordinary +hospitality of such an occasion, but, when each turned his plate over, he +found under it an order upon a banker for the full amount, with interest, +of the unpaid balance of the debt that he had released. + +At the time of Mr. Denham's death, Franklin had only recently arrived at +the age of twenty-one. Holmes, his brother-in-law, now urged him to return +to his trade, and Keimer offered him a liberal yearly wage to take charge +of his printing-office, so that he himself might have more time for his +stationery business. Franklin had heard a bad character of Keimer in London +from Keimer's wife and her friends, and he was reluctant to have anything +more to do with him; so much so that he endeavored to secure employment as +a merchant's clerk, but, being unable to do so, he closed with Keimer. + + I found in his house [says the _Autobiography_] these + hands: Hugh Meredith, a Welsh Pennsilvanian, thirty + years of age, bred to country work; honest, sensible, + had a great deal of solid observation, was something of + a reader, but given to drink. Stephen Potts, a young + countryman of full age, bred to the same, of uncommon + natural parts, and great wit and humour, but a little + idle. These he had agreed with at extream low wages per + week, to be rais'd a shilling every three months, as + they would deserve by improving in their business; and + the expectation of these high wages, to come on + hereafter, was what he had drawn them in with. Meredith + was to work at press, Potts at book-binding, which he, + by agreement, was to teach them, though he knew neither + one nor t'other. John,--a wild Irishman, brought up to + no business, whose service, for four years, Keimer had + purchased from the captain of a ship; he, too, was to + be made a pressman. George Webb, an Oxford scholar, + whose time for four years he had likewise bought, + intending him for a compositor, of whom more presently; + and David Harry, a country boy, whom he had taken + apprentice. + +George Webb is later described by Franklin as being lively, witty, +good-natured and a pleasant companion, but idle, thoughtless, and imprudent +to the last degree. While a student at Oxford, he had become possessed with +the desire to see London and be a player. Yielding to this impulse, he +walked outside of Oxford, hid his gown in a furze bush, and strode on to +London where he fell into bad company, spent all his money, pawned his +clothes and lacked bread; having failed to secure an opening as a player. +While in this situation, he was induced by his necessities to bind himself +to go over to America as an indentured servant, and this he did without +ever writing a line to his friends to let them know what had become of him. +John, the Irishman, soon absconded. With the rest of Keimer's awkward +squad, Franklin quickly formed very agreeable relations, all the more so +because they had found Keimer incapable of teaching them, but now found +that Franklin taught them something daily. By Keimer, too, Franklin was for +a time treated with great civility and apparent regard. The selfish reasons +for such treatment were patent enough. + + Our printing-house [declares the _Autobiography_] often + wanted sorts, and there was no letter-founder in + America; I had seen types cast at James's in London, + but without much attention to the manner; however, I + now contrived a mould, made use of the letters we had + as puncheons, struck the matrices in lead, and thus + supply'd in a pretty tolerable way all deficiencies. I + also engrav'd several things on occasion; I made the + ink; I was warehousman, and everything, and, in short, + quite a fac-totum. + +Keimer was simply using Franklin to lick his rough cubs into shape. The +value of Franklin's services declined every day as his other hands became +more efficient, and, when he paid him his wages for the second quarter, he +let him know that he thought that he should submit to a reduction. By +degrees, he grew less civil, assumed a more imperious air, became +fault-finding and captious, and seemed ready for an outbreak. Nevertheless, +Franklin preserved his patience, thinking that Keimer's demeanor was partly +due to his embarrassed circumstances. But a very small spark was enough to +produce an explosion. Startled one day by a loud noise near the +court-house, Franklin put his head out of the window of the printing-office +to see what was the matter. Just then, Keimer, who was in the street, +looked up and saw him, and called out to him in vociferous and angry tones +to mind his business, adding some reproachful words that nettled Franklin +the more because they were heard by the whole neighborhood. Keimer made +things still worse by coming up into the printing-office and continuing his +rebuke. High words passed between the two, and Keimer gave Franklin the +quarter's notice to quit, to which he was entitled, saying as he did it +that he wished he could give him a shorter one. Franklin replied that the +wish was unnecessary, and, taking up his hat, walked out of doors, +requesting Meredith, as he left, to take care of some of his things that +remained behind him, and to bring them to his lodgings. This Meredith, who +had a great regard for Franklin, and regretted very much the thought of +being in the printing-office without him, did the evening of the same day, +and he availed himself of the opportunity to dissuade Franklin from +returning to New England. Keimer, he said, was in debt for all that he +possessed, his creditors were beginning to be uneasy, and he managed his +shop wretchedly, often selling without profit for ready money, and +frequently giving credit without keeping an account. He must, therefore, +fail, which would make an opening for Franklin. To this reasoning Franklin +objected his want of means. Meredith then informed him that his father had +a high opinion of him, and, from some things, that his father had said to +him, he was sure that, if Franklin would enter into a partnership with him, +the elder Meredith would advance enough money to set them going in +business. His time with Keimer, he further said, would be out in the +spring. Before then, they might procure their press and type from London. +"I am sensible," added Meredith, "I am no workman; if you like it, your +skill in the business shall be set against the stock I furnish, and we will +share the profits equally." + +Franklin acceded to the proposal, and Meredith's father ratified it all the +more willingly as he saw that Franklin had a great deal of influence with +his son, had prevailed on him to abstain from dram-drinking for long +periods of time, and might be able to induce him to give up the miserable +habit entirely when they came to form the close relations of partners with +each other. An inventory of what was needed for the business was +accordingly given to the father; an order for it was placed by him in the +hands of a merchant; and the things were sent for. Until they arrived, the +partnership was to be kept secret, and Franklin was to seek employment from +Bradford. Bradford, however, was not in need of a hand, and for some days +Franklin was condemned to idleness. But opportunely enough the chance +presented itself to Keimer just at this time of being employed to print +some paper money for the Province of New Jersey which would require cuts +and type that nobody but Franklin was clever enough to execute or make. +Fearing that Bradford might employ him, and secure the work, Keimer sent +Franklin word that old friends should not be estranged by a few passionate +words, and that he hoped Franklin would return to him. Influenced by the +desire of Meredith to derive still further benefit from his instruction, +Franklin did return to Keimer, and entered upon relations with him that +proved more satisfactory than any that he had had with him for some time +past. Keimer secured the New Jersey contract. + + The New Jersey jobb was obtain'd [the _Autobiography_ + states], I contriv'd a copperplate press for it, the + first that had been seen in the country; I cut several + ornaments and checks for the bills. We went together to + Burlington, where I executed the whole to satisfaction; + and he received so large a sum for the work as to be + enabled thereby to keep his head much longer above + water. + +One of the attractive things about the youth of Franklin is the extent to +which his love of reading and intellectual superiority gave him a standing +with distinguished or prominent men much older than himself. In the case of +Sir William Keith, the standing produced nothing but deception and +disappointment, but, in the case of Cotton Mather, it supplied Franklin +with one of those moral lessons for which his mind had such an eager +appetency. + + The last time I saw your father [he wrote late in life + to Samuel Mather, the son of Cotton] was in the + beginning of 1724, when I visited him after my first + trip to Pennsylvania. He received me in his library, + and on my taking leave showed me a shorter way out of + the house through a narrow passage, which was crossed + by a beam overhead. We were still talking as I + withdrew, he accompanying me behind, and I turning + partly toward him, when he said hastily, _Stoop, + stoop!_ I did not understand him, till I felt my head + hit against the beam. He was a man that never missed + any occasion of giving instruction, and upon this he + said to me, "_You are young, and have the world before + you_; STOOP _as you go through it, and you will miss + many hard thumps_." This advice, thus beat into my + head, has frequently been of use to me; and I often + think of it, when I see pride mortified, and misfortune + brought upon people by their carrying their heads too + high. + +Gov. William Burnet, of New York, the son of the famous English Bishop of +that name, was another conspicuous personage to whose friendly notice the +youth was brought. Shortly after the apt admonition of Cotton Mather, when +Franklin was on his return to Philadelphia, the Governor heard from the +captain of the vessel, by which Franklin had been conveyed to New York, +that a young man, one of his passengers, had a great many books with him, +and asked the captain to bring this young man to see him. The Governor +loved books and lovers of books. + + I waited upon him accordingly [says Franklin] and + should have taken Collins with me but that he was not + sober. The gov'r. treated me with great civility, + show'd me his library, which was a very large one, and + we had a good deal of conversation about books and + authors. This was the second governor who had done me + the honour to take notice of me; which, to a poor boy + like me, was very pleasing. + +The happy consequences to Ralph and himself of the respect, shown him by +Col. French at New Castle, and the lasting sense of gratitude that he soon +afterwards excited in Andrew Hamilton have just been mentioned. This +capacity for arresting the attention of men of years and influence now made +its mark in New Jersey. Some of the principal men of the province were +appointed by the Assembly to oversee the working of Keimer's press, and to +take care that no more bills were printed than were authorized by law. They +discharged this duty by turns, and usually each one, when he came, brought +a friend or so with him for company. In this way, Franklin was introduced +to a considerable group of persons who invited him to their houses, +introduced him to their friends, and showed him much attention. Keimer, on +the other hand, perhaps, Franklin surmises, because his mind had not been +so much improved by reading as his, was a little neglected, though the +master. The explanation given by Franklin for this neglect would seem a +rather inadequate one when we recollect that in the same context he sums up +the character of Keimer in these trenchant words: "In truth, he was an odd +fish; ignorant of common life, fond of rudely opposing receiv'd opinions, +slovenly to extream dirtiness, enthusiastic in some points of religion, and +a little knavish withal." Like St. Sebastian, poor Keimer will never be +drawn without that arrow in his side. + +For three months Franklin remained at Burlington, making printer's ink +money. At the end of that time, he could reckon among his friends Judge +Allen, Samuel Bustill, the Secretary of the Province, Isaac Pearson, Joseph +Cooper, and several of the Smiths, members of the Assembly, and Isaac +Decow, the surveyor-general. + + The latter [he says] was a shrewd, sagacious old man, + who told me that he began for himself, when young, by + wheeling clay, for the brickmakers, learned to write + after he was of age, carri'd the chain for surveyors, + who taught him surveying and he had now by his + industry, acquir'd a good estate; and says he, "I + foresee that you will soon work this man out of his + business, and make a fortune in it at Philadelphia." He + had not then the least intimation of my intention to + set up there or anywhere. These friends were afterwards + of great use to me, as I occasionally was to some of + them. They all continued their regard for me as long as + they lived. + +Shortly after the completion of the New Jersey contract, the new type, +which had been ordered for Franklin and Meredith from London, arrived at +Philadelphia. With Keimer's consent, the two friends left him before he +knew of its arrival. They rented a house near the market, and, to reduce +the rent of twenty-four pounds a year, they sublet a part of it to Thomas +Godfrey, who was to board them. They had scarcely made ready for business +when George House, an acquaintance of Franklin, brought to them a +countryman who had inquired of him on the street where he could find a +printer. By this countryman the firm was paid for the work that he gave +them the sum of five shillings, and this sum, Franklin declares in the +_Autobiography_, being their first fruits, and coming in at a time when +they had expended all their available cash in preparing for business, +awakened more pleasure in him than any crown that he had ever since earned, +and, besides, made him prompter than he, perhaps, would otherwise have been +to help beginners. Whether there were any "boomers," to use the cant term +of to-day, in Philadelphia at that time the _Autobiography_ does not tell +us, but there was, to use another cant term of to-day, at least one +"knocker." + + There are croakers in every country [says Franklin in + the _Autobiography_] always boding its ruin. Such a one + then lived in Philadelphia: a person of note, an + elderly man, with a wise look and a very grave manner + of speaking; his name was Samuel Mickle. This + gentleman, a stranger to me, stopt one day at my door, + and asked me if I was the young man who had lately + opened a new printing-house. Being answered in the + affirmative, he said he was sorry for me, because it + was an expensive undertaking, and the expense would be + lost; for Philadelphia was a sinking place, the people + already half bankrupts, or near being so; all + appearances to the contrary, such as new buildings and + the rise of rents, being to his certain knowledge + fallacious, for they were, in fact, among the things + that would soon ruin us. And he gave me such a detail + of misfortunes now existing, or that were soon to + exist, that he left me half melancholy. Had I known him + before I engaged in this business, probably I never + should have done it. This man continued to live in this + decaying place, and to declaim in the same strain, + refusing for many years to buy a house there, because + all was going to destruction; and at last I had the + pleasure of seeing him give five times as much for one + as he might have bought it for when he first began his + croaking. + +The outlook of Franklin was a cheerful, optimistic one, and he had no +sympathy with pessimists of any sort. Even his civic interests came back to +him in personal profit, since, aside from its public aims, the Junto was a +most useful aid to the business of Franklin and Meredith. All its members +made a point of soliciting patronage for the new printing firm. Breintnal, +for instance, obtained for it the privilege of printing forty sheets of the +history which the Quakers published of their sect; the rest having gone to +Keimer. The price was low, and the job cost Franklin and Meredith much hard +labor. The work, Franklin tells us, with the fond minuteness with which a +man is disposed to dwell upon the events of his early life, was a folio, of +_pro patria_ size, and in pica, with long primer notes. Franklin composed +it at the rate of a sheet a day, and Meredith ran off what was composed at +the press. It was often eleven at night and later, when Franklin had +completed his distribution for the work of the next day, for now and then +he was set back by other business calls. So resolved, however, was he never +to default on his sheet a day that one night, when one of his forms was +accidentally broken up, and two pages of his work reduced to pi, he +immediately distributed and composed it over again before he went to bed, +though he had supposed, when the accident occurred, that a hard day's task +had ended. This industry brought the firm into favorable notice, and +especially was Franklin gratified by what Dr. Baird had to say about it. +When the new printing-office was mentioned at the Merchants' Every Night +Club, and the opinion was generally expressed that three printing-offices +could not be maintained in Philadelphia, he took issue with this view; "For +the industry of that Franklin," he said, "is superior to anything I ever +saw of the kind; I see him still at work when I go home from club, and he +is at work again before his neighbors are out of bed." This statement led +one of the persons who heard it to offer to furnish the new firm with +stationery; but it was not yet ready to open a stationery shop. + +About this time, George Webb, who had bought his time of Keimer, with the +aid of one of his female friends, solicited from the firm employment as a +journeyman. Its situation was not such as to warrant his employment, but +Franklin indiscreetly let him know as a secret that he expected to +establish a newspaper soon; when he might have work for him. Bradford's +newspaper, _The American Mercury_, he told Webb, was a paltry thing, stupid +and wretchedly managed, and yet was profitable. "Three can keep a Secret if +two are dead," is a saying of Poor Richard. It would have been well if +Franklin on this occasion had been mindful of the wisdom in which it was +conceived. He requested Webb not to mention what he said; but, as is often +true under such circumstances, it would have been more prudent for him to +have asked him to mention it. Webb did tell Keimer, and he immediately +published the prospectus of a newspaper on which Webb was to be employed. +This was resented by Franklin, and, to counteract the scheme, he and his +friend Breintnal wrote some clever little essays for Bradford's newspaper +under the title of the "Busy Body." In that dull sheet, they were, to +borrow Shakespeare's image, like bright metal on sullen ground. Public +attention was fixed upon them, and Keimer's prospectus was overlooked. He +founded his newspaper nevertheless, and conducted it for nine months under +the prolix name of the _Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences and +Pennsylvania Gazette_. It never had, at any time, more than ninety +subscribers, and, at the end of the nine months, in 1729, Franklin, who had +for some time had his arms extended to catch it when it fell, bought it at +a trifling price. Under his ownership, the cumbrous name of the paper was +cut down simply to that of the _Pennsylvania Gazette_, and the absurd plan +formed by Keimer of publishing an instalment of Chambers' Universal +Dictionary of all the Arts and Sciences in every issue was abandoned for a +strain of original comment and unctuous humor which made the _Gazette_ in +popularity second only to _Poor Richard's Almanac_. Under Franklin's hands, +the paper assumed from the beginning a better typographical appearance than +any previously known to the Province, and some spirited observations by him +on a controversy between Governor Burnet and the Massachusetts Assembly, +which called into play his aversion to political tyranny, aroused so much +public attention that all the leading citizens of the Province became +subscribers. Many other subscribers followed in their train, and the +subscriptions went on continually increasing until in a few years, to quote +Franklin's own words, the _Gazette_ proved extremely profitable to him. + + This was one of the first good effects of my having + learnt a little to scribble [he tells us], another was + that the leading men, seeing a newspaper now in the + hands of one who could also handle a pen, thought it + convenient to oblige and encourage me. Bradford still + printed the Votes and laws, and other publick business. + He had printed an address of the House to the Governor, + in a coarse, blundering manner; we reprinted it + elegantly and correctly, and sent one to every member. + They were sensible of the difference: it strengthened + the hands of our friends in the House, and they voted + us their printers for the year ensuing. + +Among these friends, was the grateful Andrew Hamilton. + +The young printer had pushed himself forward successfully enough to make +his competition keenly felt by both Keimer and Bradford. But now +unexpectedly, when all the omens were so fair, he found himself on the +brink of ruin. For some time past, he had faithfully observed his +obligations to Meredith, though his friends lamented his connection with +him. Meredith was no compositor, and but a poor pressman, and, if he had +been the best compositor or pressman in the world, he would have been a +poor partner, for he was seldom sober. While Franklin was bearing him along +on his back as well as he could, Meredith's father found himself unable to +advance for the firm the second instalment of one hundred pounds, necessary +to complete the payment for its printing outfit. The result was that the +merchant, who had sold it to the firm, grew impatient, and sued them all. +They gave bail, but realized that, if the money could not be raised in +time, judgment and execution would follow, and that the outfit would be +sold at half price. Then it was, to recall the simple and affecting words +of Franklin himself in the _Autobiography_, that two true friends, William +Coleman and Robert Grace, whose kindness he had never forgotten, and never +would forget, while he could remember anything, came to him separately, +unknown to each other, and, without any application from him, each offered +to advance to him all the money that should be necessary to enable him to +acquire the whole business of the firm, if that should be practicable.[8] +They did not like the idea of his continuing to be a partner of Meredith, +who, they said, was often seen drunk in the streets, and playing at low +games in alehouses to the discredit of the firm. Distressing, however, as +his situation was, Franklin appears to have acted with a high-minded regard +to the proprieties of the occasion. He told Coleman and Grace that, so long +as there was any prospect that the Merediths might live up to their +agreement, he was under too great obligations to them for what they had +done, and would do, if they could, to suggest a dissolution of the +partnership, but that, if they finally defaulted in the performance of +their part of the agreement, and the partnership was dissolved, he would +feel at liberty to accept the assistance of his friends. + +But he was astute as well as conscientious. After the matter had rested in +this position for some time, he said to Meredith: + + Perhaps your father is dissatisfied at the part you + have undertaken in this affair of ours, and is + unwilling to advance for you and me what he would for + you alone. If that is the case, tell me, and I will + resign the whole to you, and go about my business. + + No, said he, my father has really been disappointed, + and is really unable; and I am unwilling to distress + him farther. I see this is a business I am not fit for. + I was bred a farmer, and it was a folly in me to come + to town, and put myself, at thirty years of age, an + apprentice to learn a new trade. Many of our Welsh + people are going to settle in North Carolina, where + land is cheap. I am inclin'd to go with them, and + follow my old employment. You may find friends to + assist you. If you will take the debts of the company + upon you; return to my father the hundred pound he has + advanced; pay my little personal debts, and give me + thirty pounds and a new saddle, I will relinquish the + partnership, and leave the whole in your hands. + +Franklin agreed to this proposal. It was made the basis of a contract which +was immediately signed and sealed. Meredith received the thirty pounds and +the saddle, and soon afterwards went off to North Carolina, whence he sent +to Franklin the next year two long letters containing the best account of +the climate, soil, husbandry and other features of that Province that had +been given up to that time. "For in those matters," adds Franklin, with his +usual generosity, "he was very judicious. I printed them in the papers, and +they gave great satisfaction to the publick." + +After the departure of Meredith for North Carolina, Franklin turned to the +two friends who had proffered their help. He accepted from each of them, +because he would not give an unkind preference to either, one half of the +money he needed, paid off the debts of the partnership, advertised its +dissolution and went on with the business in his own name. This was on July +14, 1730. + +Seasonably for him, there was a loud cry among the people at this time for +a more abundant issue of paper money. The wealthier members of the +community were all against the proposition. They feared that an addition to +the existing paper circulation would depreciate, as it had done in New +York, and that the debts due to them would be discharged by payment in a +medium worth less than its nominal value. The question was discussed by the +Junto, and Franklin argued in favor of the issue; being persuaded that the +prosperity of the Province had been very much promoted by a small previous +issue of paper money in 1723. He remembered, he says in the +_Autobiography_, that, when he first walked about the streets of +Philadelphia, eating his roll, most of the houses on Walnut Street, between +Second and Front Streets, and many besides, on Chestnut and other streets, +were placarded, "To be let"; which made him feel as if the inhabitants of +Philadelphia were deserting the town one after the other; whereas at the +time of this discussion all the old houses were occupied, and many new ones +were in process of construction. Not content with presenting his views on +the subject to the Junto, he wrote an anonymous pamphlet on it entitled +_The Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency_. This pamphlet was well +received by the common people, he tells us, but met with the disfavor of +the rich, because it swelled the clamor for more money. Their opposition, +however, for lack of writers, competent to refute its reasoning, +languished, and the issue was authorized by the Assembly. Franklin's +friends in the house rewarded him for his part in the controversy over it +by employing him to print the money. "A very profitable jobb and a great +help to me," remarks Franklin complacently in the _Autobiography_, and he +adds, "This was another advantage gain'd by my being able to write." + +Through the influence of his friend Hamilton, he likewise secured the +contract for printing the paper money, issued by the Three Lower Counties +on the Delaware. "Another profitable jobb as I then thought it," he says, +"small things appearing great to those in small circumstances." Hamilton +also procured for him the privilege of printing the laws and legislative +proceedings of the Three Lower Counties, and he retained it as long as he +remained in the printing business. Now, for the first time, he felt that +his position was assured enough for him to open up a small stationery shop, +where he sold blanks of all sorts, paper, parchment, chapmen's books and +other such wares. The blanks he believed to be "the correctest that ever +appear'd among us, being assisted in that by my friend Breintnal." The +demands on his printing-office, too, increased to such a degree that he +employed a compositor, one Whitemarsh, an excellent workman, whom he had +known in London, and undertook the care of an apprentice, a son of the +ever-to-be-lamented Aquila Rose. Soon he was prospering to such an extent +that he could begin to pay off the debt that he owed on his printing +outfit. These are the words in which he himself described his situation at +this time: + + In order to secure my credit and character as a + tradesman, I took care not only to be in _reality_ + industrious and frugal, but to avoid all appearances to + the contrary. I drest plainly; I was seen at no places + of idle diversion. I never went out a fishing or + shooting; a book, indeed, sometimes debauch'd me from + my work, but that was seldom, snug, and gave no + scandal; and, to show that I was not above my business, + I sometimes brought home the paper I purchas'd at the + stores thro' the streets on a wheel-barrow. Thus being + esteem'd an industrious, thriving young man, and paying + duly for what I bought, the merchants who imported + stationery solicited my custom; others proposed + supplying me with books, and I went on swimmingly. In + the meantime, Keimer's credit and business declining + daily, he was at last forc'd to sell his printing-house + to satisfy his creditors. He went to Barbadoes, and + there lived some years in very poor circumstances. + +For some time before Keimer went off to Barbadoes, he had been in the +condition of an unsound tree, which still stands but with a dry rot at its +heart momentarily presaging its fall. As far back as Issue No. 27 of _The +Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences_, and _Pennsylvania Gazette_, +he had found it necessary to explain a week's delay in the publication of +that issue by stating to the public that he had been awakened, when fast +asleep in bed, about eleven at night, over-tired with the labor of the day, +and taken away from his dwelling by a writ and summons; it being basely and +confidently given out that he was that very night about to run away, though +there was not the least color or ground for such a vile report. He was, he +further declared, "the shuttlecock of fortune ... the very but for villany +to shoot at, or the continued mark for slander and her imps to spit their +venom upon." It was remarkable, he thought, that + + a person of strict sincerity, refin'd justice, and + universal love to the whole creation, should for a + series of near twenty years, be the constant but of + slander, as to be three times ruin'd as a + master-printer, to be nine times in prison, one of + which was six years together, and often reduc'd to the + most wretched circumstances, hunted as a partridge upon + the mountains, and persecuted with the most abominable + lies the devil himself could invent or malice utter. + +It was but the old story of the man, who is dizzy, thinking that the whole +world is spinning around. + +David Harry, Keimer's former apprentice, had also opened a printing-office +in Philadelphia. When his enterprise was in its inception, Franklin +regarded his rivalry with much uneasiness on account of his influential +connections. He accordingly proposed a partnership to him, a proposal +which, fortunately for the former, was disdainfully refused. "He was very +proud," says Franklin, "dress'd like a gentleman, liv'd expensively, took +much diversion and pleasure abroad, ran in debt, and neglected his +business; upon which, all business left him." The result was that Harry had +to follow Keimer to Barbadoes, taking his printing outfit with him. Here +the former apprentice employed the former master as a journeyman; they +frequently quarrelled with each other; Harry steadily fell behind, and was +compelled to sell his type, and to return to his country work in +Pennsylvania. The purchaser of the outfit employed Keimer to operate it, +but, in a few years more, Keimer was transported by death out of the world, +which for a considerable part of his life he had seen only through the +gratings of a jail. + +The departure of Harry left Franklin without any competitor except his old +one, Bradford, who was too rich and easy-going to actively push for +business. But, in one respect, Bradford was a formidable rival. He was the +Postmaster at Philadelphia, and his newspaper flourished at the expense of +the _Gazette_ upon the public impression that his connection with the +Post-office gave him facilities for gathering news and for circulating +advertisements that Franklin did not enjoy. + +To this period belong Franklin's treaty for a wife with enough means to +discharge the balance of one hundred pounds still due on his printing +outfit, and his final recoil to Deborah whose industry and frugality were +far more than the pecuniary equivalent of one hundred pounds. After his +marriage, he was, if anything, even more industrious than before, and this +is what he has to say about his habits and employments during the period +that immediately followed that event: + + Reading was the only amusement I allow'd myself. I + spent no time in taverns, games, or frolicks of any + kind; and my industry in my business continu'd as + indefatigable as it was necessary. I was indebted for + my printing-house; I had a young family coming on to be + educated, and I had to contend with for business two + printers, who were established in the place before me. + My circumstances, however, grew daily easier. My + original habits of frugality continuing, and my father + having among his instructions to me when a boy, + frequently repeated a proverb of Solomon, "Seest thou a + man diligent in his calling, he shall stand before + kings, he shall not stand before mean men," I from + thence considered industry as a means of obtaining + wealth and distinction, which encourag'd me, tho' I did + not think that I should ever literally _stand before_ + kings, which, however, has since happened; for I have + stood before _five_, and even had the honour of sitting + down with one, the King of Denmark, to dinner. + +Another passage in the _Autobiography_ tells us just what degree of +frugality Franklin and Deborah practiced at this stage of his business +career. + + We kept no idle servants [he says], our table was plain + and simple, our furniture of the cheapest. For + instance, my breakfast was a long time bread and milk + (no tea), and I ate it out of a twopenny earthen + porringer, with a pewter spoon. But mark how luxury + will enter families, and make a progress, in spite of + principle: being call'd one morning to breakfast, I + found it in a China bowl, with a spoon of silver! They + had been bought for me without my knowledge by my wife, + and had cost her the enormous sum of three-and-twenty + shillings, for which she had no other excuse or apology + to make, but that she thought _her_ husband deserv'd a + silver spoon and China bowl as well as any of his + neighbors. This was the first appearance of plate and + China in our house, which afterward, in a course of + years, as our wealth increased, augmented gradually to + several hundred pounds in value. + +In 1732 was first published, at fivepence a copy, Franklin's famous almanac +known as _Poor Richard's Almanac_, which for twenty-five years warmed the +homes of Pennsylvania with the ruddy glow of its wit, humor and wisdom. His +endeavor in conducting it he tells us was to make it both entertaining and +useful, and he was so successful that he reaped considerable profit from +the nearly ten thousand copies of it that he annually sold. Hundreds of the +inhabitants of Pennsylvania, who read nothing else, read the _Almanac_. Its +infectious humor, its coarse pleasantry, its proverbs and sayings so much +wiser than the wisdom, and so much wittier than the wit of any single +individual, made the name of Franklin a common household word from one end +of Pennsylvania to another, and, when finally strained off into Father +Abraham's speech, established his reputation as a kindly humorist and moral +teacher throughout the world. + +In somewhat the same spirit of instruction as well as entertainment was the +_Gazette_, too, conducted. + + I considered my newspaper, also [says Franklin], as + another means of communicating instruction, and in that + view frequently reprinted in it extracts from the + _Spectator_, and other moral writers; and sometimes + publish'd little pieces of my own, which had been first + compos'd for reading in our Junto. + +The caution exercised by the _Gazette_ in shutting out malice and personal +abuse from its columns is the subject of one of the weightiest series of +statements in the _Autobiography_. + + In the conduct of my newspaper [Franklin declares] I + carefully excluded all libelling and personal abuse, + which is of late years become so disgraceful to our + country. Whenever I was solicited to insert anything + of that kind, and the writers pleaded, as they + generally did, the liberty of the press, and that a + newspaper was like a stage-coach, in which any one who + would pay had a right to a place, my answer was, that I + would print the piece separately if desired, and the + author might have as many copies as he pleased to + distribute himself, but that I would not take upon me + to spread his detraction; and that, having contracted + with my subscribers to furnish them with what might be + either useful or entertaining, I could not fill their + papers with private altercation, in which they had no + concern, without doing them manifest injustice. Now, + many of our printers make no scruple of gratifying the + malice of individuals by false accusations of the + fairest characters among ourselves, augmenting + animosity even to the producing of duels; and are, + moreover, so indiscreet as to print scurrilous + reflections on the government of neighboring states, + and even on the conduct of our best national allies, + which may be attended with the most pernicious + consequences. These things I mention as a caution to + young printers, and that they may be encouraged not to + pollute their presses and disgrace their profession by + such infamous practices, but refuse steadily, as they + may see by my example that such a course of conduct + will not, on the whole, be injurious to their + interests. + +By 1733 Franklin was sufficiently established in business to branch out +still more. That year he sent one of his journeymen, Thomas Whitemarsh, to +Charleston, South Carolina, where a printer was needed, under an agreement +of partnership which was the prototype of most of the subsequent articles +of copartnership formed by him with other printers under similar +conditions; that is to say, he furnished the printing outfit, paid one +third of the expenses, and received one third of the profits. The history +of this partner gave Franklin an opportunity to moralize a little in the +_Autobiography_ upon the importance of a knowledge of accounts rather than +of music or dancing as a part of female education. The Carolina printer was +a man of education and honest, but ignorant of accounts, and, though he +made occasional remittances, Franklin could never get any account from him, +nor any satisfactory statement of the condition of the partnership +business. On his death, however, his widow, who had been born and bred in +Holland, not only sent Franklin as clear a statement as was possible of the +past transactions of the firm, but subsequently rendered him an exact +account every quarter with the utmost punctuality, and, besides, managed +the business with such success that she reared a family of children +decently, and, upon the expiration of the copartnership, purchased the +outfit from Franklin, and turned it over to her son. + +The success of the Carolina partnership encouraged Franklin to form +partnerships with other journeymen of his, and by 1743 he had opened three +printing-offices in three different colonies, and proposed to open a +fourth, if he could find a suitable person to take charge of it. Others +were opened by him later. Among the persons besides Whitemarsh, established +by him at different times as printers, under one arrangement or another +with himself, were Peter Timothy in South Carolina, Smith and Benjamin +Mecom in Antigua, James Parker in New York, his brother in Rhode Island, +Hall and Miller and Samuel Holland at Lancaster, and William Daniell at +Kingston, Jamaica. Speaking of his partners in the _Autobiography_, he says +of them: + + Most of them did well, being enabled at the end of our + term, six years, to purchase the types of me and go on + working for themselves, by which means several families + were raised. Partnerships often finish in quarrels; but + I was happy in this, that mine were all carried on and + ended amicably, owing, I think, a good deal to the + precaution of having very explicitly settled, in our + articles, everything to be done by or expected from + each partner, so that there was nothing to dispute, + which precaution I would therefore recommend to all who + enter into partnerships; for, whatever esteem partners + may have for, and confidence in each other at the time + of the contract, little jealousies and disgusts may + arise, with ideas of inequality in the care and burden + of the business, etc., which are attended often with + breach of friendship and of the connection, perhaps + with lawsuits and other disagreeable consequences. + +Two other business enterprises of Franklin merit notice. He was the founder +of the first newspaper in the United States to be published in a foreign +tongue, namely, the _Philadelphische Zeitung_, which owed its origin to the +large number of Germans who came over to Pennsylvania during the Colonial +Period. He was also the founder of a monthly literary magazine which for +some reason he does not mention in the _Autobiography_ at all. It was the +second enterprise of the kind undertaken in America, and was known as _The +General Magazine and Historical Chronicle for All the British Plantations +in America_. To Franklin as a business man might aptly be applied the words +of Emerson with respect to Guy: + + Stream could not so perversely wind + But corn of Guy's was there to grind. + +One exception, however, appears to have been this magazine which lasted but +a short time. It was ill-starred from the start. When Franklin was ready to +spring it upon the public, he engaged John Webbe as its editor, but Webbe +betrayed the project to Bradford, who at once announced that, a little +later, a magazine would be offered to the public edited by Webbe, and +published by himself. When the first number of Franklin's magazine came +out, he stated that its publication was earlier than he had intended +because of the faithless conduct of Webbe. This Webbe resented by charging +Franklin, who was then Postmaster at Philadelphia, with shutting out +Bradford's _Mercury_ from the post, but Franklin silenced his fire by +stating and proving that he had had no choice in the matter, because he had +been commanded by Postmaster-General Spottswood, on account of Bradford's +failure as Postmaster at Philadelphia to account with him, to suffer no +longer any of his newspapers or letters to be conveyed by post free of +charge. + +The business of Franklin received another push forward with the political +consequence which he acquired through the _Gazette_ and the influence of +the Junto. In 1736, he was chosen Clerk of the General Assembly, and in the +succeeding year he was appointed Postmaster at Philadelphia, in the place +of Bradford, by Alexander Spottswood, who had been Governor of Virginia, +and was then the Deputy Postmaster-General for America. The salary of the +Postmastership was small, but, for the purposes of the _Gazette_, the +office gave him the same advantage that Bradford had enjoyed, when he +refused to allow that newspaper to be carried by his post-riders. The +positions of the two men were now reversed, but Franklin was too +magnanimous to remind Bradford, sternly, as he did Jemmy Read, that +Fortune's Wheel is ever turning. "My old competitor's newspaper," he says, +"declined proportionably, and I was satisfy'd without retaliating his +refusal, while postmaster, to permit my papers being carried by the +riders." Bradford had suffered, Franklin adds, "for his neglect in due +accounting." And this gave him occasion to observe that regularity and +clearness in rendering accounts and punctuality in making remittances are +"the most powerful of all recommendations to new employments and increase +of business." + +The office of Clerk of the Assembly also had its business value. + + Besides the pay for the immediate service as clerk + [Franklin says] the place gave me a better opportunity + of keeping up an interest among the members, which + secur'd to me the business of printing the votes, + laws, paper money, and other occasional jobbs for the + public, that, on the whole, were very profitable. + +The first year that he came up for election the vote in his favor was +unanimous, but the next year, while he was elected, it was only after a new +member had made a long speech against him in the interest of another +candidate. How Franklin conciliated the unfriendliness of this member is +fully told in the _Autobiography_; + + I therefore did not like the opposition of this new + member, who was a gentleman of fortune and education, + with talents that were likely to give him, in time, + great influence in the House, which, indeed, afterwards + happened. I did not, however, aim at gaining his favour + by paying any servile respect to him, but, after some + time, took this other method. Having heard that he had + in his library a certain very scarce and curious book, + I wrote a note to him, expressing my desire of perusing + that book, and requesting he would do me the favour of + lending it to me for a few days. He sent it + immediately, and I return'd it in about a week with + another note, expressing strongly my sense of the + favour. When we next met in the House, he spoke to me + (which he had never done before), and with great + civility; and he ever after manifested a readiness to + serve me on all occasions, so that we became great + friends, and our friendship continued to his death. + This is another instance of the truth of an old maxim I + had learned, which says, "_He that has once done you a + kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he + whom you yourself have obliged._" And it shows how much + more profitable it is prudently to remove, than to + resent, return, and continue inimical proceedings. + +The artifice practised by Franklin on this occasion has been condemned. +What he really did, of course, was to use gratified vanity as a foil to +mortified vanity. The possible consequences of the new member's hostility +were too serious for him to say as Washington was in the habit of saying +when he had a bad cold: "Let it go as it came." He knew that the malice was +as shallow as the good will; and the alternatives were resentment, +sycophancy, or a little subtlety. Under the circumstances, Franklin would +not have been Franklin, if he had not elected subtlety. + +Nothing was now wanting to the full development of his business career +except the repetition in other communities of the success that had crowned +his personal exertions in Pennsylvania. Referring to the state of his +business at this time, he says in the _Autobiography_; + + My business was now continually augmenting, and my + circumstances growing daily easier, my newspaper having + become very profitable, as being for a time almost the + only one in this and the neighboring provinces. I + experienced, too, the truth of the observation, "_that + after getting the first hundred pound, it is more easy + to get the second_," money itself being of a prolific + nature. + +The outcome of it all was that, in the year 1748, at the age of forty-two, +he flattered himself, to repeat his own language, that, by the sufficient, +though moderate, fortune which he had acquired, he had secured leisure +during the rest of his life for philosophical studies and amusements. + +The plan that he formed for securing this leisure, which he turned to such +fruitful, purposes, was marked by his usual good judgment. In 1744, he had +taken into his employment David Hall, a Scotch journeyman, and a friend of +Strahan. He now admitted Hall to partnership with him. "A very able, +industrious, and honest partner, Mr. David Hall, with whose character I was +well acquainted, as he had work'd for me for four years," are the terms in +which he speaks of Hall in the _Autobiography_. "He took off my hands," he +continues, "all care of the printing-office, paying me punctually my share +of the profits. The partnership continued eighteen years, successfully for +us both." Under the provisions of the partnership agreement, Hall was to +carry on the printing and publishing business of Franklin in his own way, +but in the firm name of Franklin and Hall, and Hall was to pay to Franklin +a thousand pounds a year for eighteen years; at the end of which period +Hall was to become the sole proprietor of the business.[9] Exactly what +income Franklin was deriving from his printing and publishing business at +the time that this agreement was entered into is not known, but reasonable +conjecture has placed it at something like two thousand pounds a year. At +that time he was also the owner of a considerable amount of property, +representing invested returns from his business in the past. The _Gazette_ +continued to be published until the year 1821. When the term of eighteen +years, during which the partnership was to last, expired in 1766, the +profits had been over twelve thousand pounds, Pennsylvania currency, from +subscriptions, and over four thousand pounds, Pennsylvania currency, from +advertisements. Judged by the standards of the time and place, it was an +extraordinary degree of success which had enabled Franklin in some twenty +years to establish so lucrative a business as that which he handed over to +the management of Hall in 1748, and few indeed have been the men in +mercantile history, who have been willing, after so long a period of +prosperous addiction to gain, to turn away to purely intellectual and +unremunerative pursuits from such a prospect of increasing self-enrichment +as that renounced by Franklin when he wrote to Cadwallader Colden that he, +too, was taking the proper measures for obtaining leisure to enjoy life and +his friends more than in the past; having put his printing-house under the +care of his partner, David Hall, absolutely left off book-selling, and +removed to a more quiet part of the town, where he was settling his old +accounts, and hoped soon to be quite master of his own time, and no longer, +as the song had it, at everyone's call but his own. Nobody knew better than +he that, if, after getting the first hundred pounds, it is easier to get +the second, it is still easier, after getting the second hundred pounds, to +get the third. + +For Hall, Franklin entertained uninterrupted feelings of respect and +affection, down to the date of the former's death on December 17, 1772. "My +Love to Mr. Hall," is one of his messages to Deborah some seven years after +the firm of Franklin and Hall was created. Before that he had written to +Strahan, "Our friend, Mr. Hall, is well, and manages perfectly to my +satisfaction." Many years after the death of Hall, the account between +Franklin and him had not been wholly settled, and a letter from the former +to Strahan in the year 1785 tells him that Hall and himself had not been of +the same mind as to "the value of a copyright in an established newspaper, +of each of which from eight to ten thousand were printed," but "were to be +determined" by Strahan's opinion. "My long absence from that country, and +immense employment the little time I was there," Franklin wrote, "have +hitherto prevented the settlement of all the accounts that had been between +us; though we never differed about them, and never should if that good +honest man had continued in being." + +Franklin's failure to forecast the stubborn hostility of the Colonies to +the Stamp Act not only cost him some personal popularity but it caused his +firm some pecuniary loss. Anticipating with his usual shrewdness the +passage of that Act, which imposed a tax of a sterling half-penny on every +half-sheet of a newspaper, however small, he sent over to Hall one hundred +reams of large half-sheet paper, but permission could not be obtained to +have it stamped in America, and it was all reshipped to England at a loss. + + As to the Paper sent over [he wrote to Hall] I did it + for the best, having at that time Expectations given me + that we might have had it stampt there; in which case + you would have had great Advantage of the other + Printers, since if they were not provided with such + Paper, they must have either printed but a half sheet + common Demi, or paid for two Stamps on each Sheet. The + Plan was afterward alter'd notwithstanding all I could + do, it being alledged that Scotland & every Colony + would expect the same Indulgence if it was granted to + us. The Papers must not be sent back again: But I hope + you will excuse what I did in Good will, tho' it + happen'd wrong. + +After the retirement of Franklin from active business, he still continued +to hold his office as Postmaster at Philadelphia, and, while holding it, he +was employed by the Deputy Postmaster-General for America as his +comptroller to examine and audit the accounts of several of his subordinate +officers. Upon the death of the Deputy Postmaster-General, he was appointed +his successor, jointly with William Hunter, of Virginia, by the British +Postmasters-General. When the pair were appointed, the office had never +earned any net revenue for the British Crown. Under the terms of their +appointment, they were to have six hundred pounds a year between them, if +they could make that sum out of its profits, and, when they entered upon +it, so many improvements had to be effected by them that, in the first four +years, it ran into debt to them to the extent of upwards of nine hundred +pounds; but, under the skilful management of Franklin, it became +remunerative, and, before he was removed by the British Government, after +his arraignment before the Privy Council, it had been brought to yield +three times as much clear revenue to the Crown as the Irish Post-office. +"Since that imprudent transaction," Franklin observes in the +_Autobiography_, "they have receiv'd from it--not one farthing!" + +On August 10, 1761, eight years after the appointment of Franklin and +Hunter, and a few weeks before Foxcroft succeeded Hunter, there was a net +balance of four hundred and ninety-four pounds four shillings and eight +pence due by the American Post-office to the British Crown; which was duly +remitted. "And this," exclaims the astonished official record of the fact +in England, "is the first remittance ever made of the kind." Between August +10, 1761, and the beginning of 1764, the net profits of the American +Post-office amounted to two thousand and seventy pounds twelve shillings +and three and one quarter pence, and drew from the British +Postmasters-General the statement, "The Posts in America are under the +management of persons of acknowledged ability." With this record of +administrative success, it is not surprising that, when Franklin was +removed from office, he should have written to Thomas Cushing these bitter +words: + + I received a written notice from the Secretary of the + general post-office, that His Majesty's + postmaster-general _found it necessary_ to dismiss me + from my office of deputy postmaster-general in North + America. The expression was well chosen, for in truth + they were _under a necessity_ of doing it; it was not + their own inclination; they had no fault to find with + my conduct in the office; they knew my merit in it, and + that, if it was now an office of value, it had become + such chiefly through my care and good management; that + it was worth nothing, when given to me; it would not + then pay the salary allowed me, and, unless it did, I + was not to expect it; and that it now produces near + three thousand pounds a year clear to the treasury + here. They had beside a personal regard for me. But as + the postoffices in all the principal towns are growing + daily more and more valuable, by the increase of + correspondence, the officers being paid _commissions_ + instead of _salaries_, the ministers seem to intend, by + directing me to be displaced on this occasion, to hold + out to them all an example that, if they are not + corrupted by their office to promote the measures of + administration, though against the interests and rights + of the colonies, they must not expect to be continued. + +Not only was the American postal service made by Franklin's able management +to yield a net revenue to the British Crown, but it was brought up to a +much higher level of efficiency. For one thing, the mails between New York +and Philadelphia were increased from one a week in summer and two a month +in winter to three a week in summer and one a week in winter. In 1764, a +Philadelphia merchant could mail a letter to New York and receive a reply +the next day. For another thing, post-riders were required to carry all +newspapers offered to them for carriage whether the newspapers of +postmasters or not. In the discharge of his postal duties, Franklin was +compelled to make many long journeys outside of Pennsylvania, and these +journeys did much, as we have said, to extend his reputation on the +American continent and to confirm his extraordinary familiarity with +American conditions. As soon as he was appointed Deputy Postmaster-General +for America with Hunter, William Franklin was appointed Comptroller of the +Post-office. The post-office at Philadelphia he first conferred upon +William Franklin, then upon Joseph Read, one of Deborah's relatives, and +then upon Peter Franklin, Franklin's brother. Indeed, so long as there was +a Franklin or a Read willing to enter the public service, Franklin's other +fellow-countrymen had very little chance of filling any vacant post in the +American Post-office. This was doubtless due not only to his clannishness +but also to the fact that, as far as we can now judge, nepotism was a much +more venial offence in the eyes of the public during the colonial era than +now. Even now it may be doubted whether the disfavor with which it is +regarded is prompted so much by its prejudicial tendency from a public +point of view as by its tendency, from the point of view of the spoilsman, +to interfere with the repeated use of office for partisan purposes. + +The income upon which Franklin retired from business was the sum of one +thousand pounds a year for eighteen years, which Hall agreed to pay him, +the small salary, arising from the office of Postmaster at Philadelphia, +and the income, supposed to be about seven hundred pounds a year, produced +by his invested savings. When in England, in addition to the one thousand +pounds a year, paid to him by Hall, which ended in the year 1766, and the +income derived by him from invested savings, he received a salary of three +hundred pounds a year from his office as Deputy Postmaster-General for +America, until he was removed in 1774, and for briefer periods a salary of +five hundred pounds a year from his office as Colonial Agent for +Pennsylvania, and salaries of four hundred pounds, two hundred pounds and +one hundred pounds as the Colonial Agent of Massachusetts, Georgia and New +Jersey, respectively. With his removal from his office of Deputy +Postmaster-General, all these agencies and the salaries attached to them +came to an end. When the annuity paid to him by Hall ceased, his income was +so seriously curtailed that he was compelled, as we have seen, to remind +Deborah of the fact. After his return from England in 1775, he was +appointed the Postmaster-General of the United States at a salary of one +thousand pounds a year. + +For his public services in France, he was allowed at first a salary of five +hundred pounds a year and his expenses, and subsequently, when his rank was +advanced to that of ambassador, two thousand five hundred pounds a year. +When he returned from France to America, he communicated to his old friend, +Charles Thomson, the Secretary of Congress, his hope that Congress might be +kind enough to recognize the value of his services and sacrifices in the +American cause by granting him some small tract of land in the West. He +saw, he said, that Congress had made a handsome allowance to Arthur Lee for +his services to America in England before his appointment as Commissioner +to France, though it had made none to the writer or to Mr. Bollan, who were +also parties to these services. Moreover, Lee, on his return to America, as +well as John Jay, had been rewarded by Congress with a good office. The +letter, of course, made out an irrefragable case; for, if the United States +had given the whole Northwest Territory to Franklin, his heirs and assigns +forever, the gift would hardly have exceeded the value of his services. It +was written just before the Old Congress gave way to the First Congress +under the Federal Constitution, and nothing ever came of it. The conduct of +the Old Congress to Franklin in other respects had been so ungenerous that +it is hardly likely that it would have made any response to the appeal +anyhow unless solicited by a more intriguing spirit than his. + +The State of Georgia was more mindful of its obligations to him, and voted +him the right to take up three thousand acres of land within its limits. + +After his return from France, a great rise took place in the value of real +estate in Philadelphia, and his houses and lots reaped its benefits to a +conspicuous degree. On Jan. 29, 1786, he wrote to Ferdinand Grand, "My own +Estate I find more than tripled in Value since the Revolution"; and similar +statements are to be found in other letters of his at this time. + +At this period of his life, a considerable amount of his attention was +given to the improvement of his property. On Apr. 22, 1787, in a letter to +Ferdinand Grand, he said, "The three Houses which I began to build last +year, are nearly finished, and I am now about to begin two others. Building +is an Old Man's Amusement. The Advantage is for his Posterity." + +When Franklin died, his estate consisted of ten houses in Philadelphia, and +almost as many vacant lots, a pasture lot near Philadelphia, a farm near +Burlington, New Jersey, a house in Boston, the right to the three thousand +acres of land in Georgia, a tract of land on the Ohio, a tract of land in +Nova Scotia, twelve shares of the capital stock of the Bank of North +America and bonds of individuals in excess of eighteen thousand pounds. The +value of his entire estate was supposed to be between two hundred and two +hundred and fifty thousand dollars. + +Under his management, the _Gazette_ was probably the best newspaper +produced in Colonial America. In its early history, it appeared first twice +a week, and then weekly, and consisted of but a single sheet, which, when +folded, was about 12 by 18 inches square. Parton is not accurate, as his +own context shows, in stating that Franklin "originated the modern system +of business-advertising." Other newspapers of the time, including +Bradford's _Mercury_, contained advertisements for the recovery of runaway +servants and slaves, and lost or stolen articles, and for the sale of +different kinds of merchandise. When Franklin fled from Boston, his brother +James advertised for another apprentice in the _Courant_. Nor is Parton +accurate, either, in stating that Franklin "invented the plan of +distinguishing advertisements by means of little pictures, which he cut +with his own hands." There were such cuts in Bradford's _Mercury_ even +before the _Gazette_ was founded. The _Gazette_ won a position of its own +because its proprietor and editor brought to its issues that knowledge of +human life and human nature and that combination of practical sagacity, +humor and literary skill which he carried into everything. The latest +advices of the day, foreign and domestic, which were tardy enough, extracts +from the _Spectator_ and other moral writers of the age, verses from +contemporary poets, cuttings from the English newspapers, broad, obscene +jokes, as unconscious of offence as the self-exposure of a child or an +animal, all assembled with the instinctive eye to unity of effect, which is +the most consummate achievement of journalistic art, made up the usual +contents of the _Gazette_. Now, along with news items of local and outside +interest, we have a humorous account of a lottery in England, by which, for +the better increase of the King's subjects, all the old maids are to be +raffled for; now some truculent flings at the Catholics, the _caput +lupinum_ of that age; now a hint to a delinquent subscriber that it was +considerably in his power to contribute towards the happiness of his most +humble obliged servant; now an exasperating intimation that the _Mercury_ +has been depredating upon the columns of its rival; now some little essay +or dialogue from the pen of Franklin himself, good enough to be classed as +literature. The open, kindly, yet shrewd, face, with the crow's-feet, +furrowed by the incessant play of humor about the corners of its eyes, +looks out at us from every page. + +The editor of the _Gazette_ sustains to his readers a relation as personal +as that sustained by Poor Richard to his. He goes off to New Jersey to +print some paper currency for that Colony, and he inserts this paragraph in +the _Gazette_: "The Printer hopes the irregular Publication of this Paper +will be excused a few times by his Town Readers, on consideration of his +being at Burlington with the press, labouring for the publick Good, to make +Money more plentiful." The statement that a flash of lightning in Bucks +County had melted the pewter buttons off the waistband of a farmer's +breeches elicits the observation, "Tis well nothing else thereabouts was +made of pewter." When contributions by others failed him, he even wrote +letters to himself under feigned names. "Printerum est errare," we are +told, and then, under this announcement, Franklin, in another name, +addresses the following facetious letter to himself: + + Sir, As your last Paper was reading in some Company + where I was present, these Words were taken Notice of + in the Article concerning Governor Belcher (After which + his Excellency, with the Gentlemen trading to New + England, died elegantly at Pontack's). The Word died + should doubtless have been dined, Pontack's being a + noted Tavern and Eating house in London for Gentlemen + of Condition; but this Omission of the Letter (n) in + that Word, gave us as much Entertainment as any Part of + your Paper. One took the Opportunity of telling us, + that in a certain Edition of the Bible, the Printer + had, where David says I am fearfully and wonderfully + made, omitted the Letter (e) in the last Word, so that + it was, I am fearfully and wonderfully mad; which + occasion'd an ignorant Preacher, who took that Text, to + harangue his Audience for half an hour on the Subject + of Spiritual Madness. Another related to us, that when + the Company of Stationers in England had the Printing + of the Bible in their Hands, the Word (not) was left + out of the Seventh Commandment, and the whole Edition + was printed off with Thou shalt commit Adultery, + instead of Thou shalt not, &c. This material Erratum + induc'd the Crown to take the Patent from them which is + now held by the King's Printer. The Spectator's Remark + upon this Story is, that he doubts many of our modern + Gentlemen have this faulty edition by 'em, and are not + made sensible of the Mistake. A Third Person in the + Company acquainted us with an unlucky Fault that went + through a whole Impression of Common-Prayer Books; in + the Funeral Service, where these Words are, We shall + all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an Eye, + &c., the Printer had omitted the (c) in changed, and it + read thus, We shall all be hanged, &c. And lastly, a + Mistake of your Brother News-Printer was mentioned, in + The Speech of James Prouse written the Night before he + was to have been executed, instead of I die a + Protestant, he has put it, I died a Protestant. Upon + the whole you came off with the more favourable + Censure, because your Paper is most commonly very + correct, and yet you were never known to triumph upon + it, by publickly ridiculing and exposing the continual + Blunders of your Contemporary Which Observation was + concluded by a good old Gentleman in Company, with this + general just Remark, That whoever accustoms himself to + pass over in Silence the Faults of his Neighbours, + shall meet with much better Quarter from the World when + he happens to fall into a Mistake himself; for the + Satyrical and Censorious, whose Hand is against every + Man, shall upon such Occasions have every Man's Hand + against him. + +This is an accusation of plagiarism made by Franklin against Bradford: + + When Mr. Bradford publishes after us [he declared], and + has Occasion to take an Article or two out of the + _Gazette_, which he is always welcome to do, he is + desired not to date his Paper a Day before ours, (as + last Week in the Case of the Letter containing Kelsey's + Speech, &c) lest distant Readers should imagine we take + from him, which we always carefully avoid. + +Bradford hit back as best he could. On one occasion he charged that the +contract for printing paper money for the Province of New Jersey had been +awarded to Franklin at a higher bid than that of another bidder. "Its no +matter," he said, "its the Country's Money, and if the Publick cannot +afford to pay well, who can? Its proper to serve a Friend when there is an +opportunity." + +One of Franklin's favorite devices for filling up gaps in the _Gazette_ was +to have himself, in the guise of a correspondent, ask himself questions, +and then answer them. "I am about courting a girl I have had but little +acquaintance with; how shall I come to a knowledge of her faults, and +whether she has the virtues I imagine she has," is one such supposititious +question. "Commend her among her female acquaintance," is the ready-made +answer. Another imaginary question was of this tenor: "Mr. Franklin: Pray +let the prettiest Creature in this Place know (by publishing this), that if +it was not for her Affectation she would be absolutely irresistible." Next +week a flood of replies gushed out of the editor's pigeon-holes. One ran +thus: + +"I cannot conceive who your Correspondent means by 'the prettiest creature' +in this Place; but I can assure either him or her, that she who is truly +so, has no Affectation at all." + +And another ran thus: + +"Sir, Since your last Week's Paper I have look'd in my Glass a thousand +Times, I believe, in one way; and if it was not for the Charge of +Affectation I might, without Partiality believe myself the Person meant." + +At times we cannot but suspect that Franklin has deliberately created a +sensation for the purpose of quickening the sale of the _Gazette_. For +instance, a peruke maker in Second Street advertises that he will "leave +off the shaving business after the 22nd of August next." Commenting on this +advertisement, Franklin observes that barbers are peculiarly fitted for +politics, for they are adept shavers and trimmers; and, when the angry +peruke maker calls him to task for his levity, he replies that he cherishes +no animosity at all towards him, and can only impute his feelings to a +"Want of taste and relish for pieces of that force and beauty which none +but a University bred gentleman can produce." + +On another occasion, when advertising the sailing of a ship, he added this +N. B. of his own: "No Sea Hens, nor Black Gowns will be admitted on any +terms." To such a degree were some of the clergy incensed by it that they +withdrew their subscriptions; but it is not unlikely that in a day or so +twice their number in scoffers were added to the subscription list of the +young printer. At times the fooling is bald buffoonery. + + On Thursday last [he informed his readers] a certain + P--r ('tis not customary to give names at length on + these occasions) walking carefully in clean clothes + over some barrels of tar on Carpenter's Wharf, the head + of one of them unluckily gave way, and let a leg of him + in above the knee. Whether he was upon the Catch at + that time, we can not say, but 'tis certain he caught a + _Tar-tar_, 'Twas observed he sprang out again right + briskly, verifying the common saying, as nimble as a + Bee in a Tar barrel. You must know there are several + sorts of bees: 'tis true he was no honey bee, nor yet a + humble bee: but a _Boo-bee_ he may be allowed to be, + namely B. F. + +Franklin was a publisher of books as well as a newspaper proprietor. Most +of the books and pamphlets published by him were of a theological or +religious nature, in other words books which, aside from the pecuniary +profit of printing them, he was very much disposed to regard as no books at +all. Others were of a description to serve the practical wants of a society +yet simple in its structure, such as _The Gentlemen's Pocket Farrier_ and +_Every Man his Own Doctor, or the Poor Planter's Physician_. But some were +of real note such as two little volumes of native American poetry, Colden's +_Essay on the Iliac Passion_, which is said to have been the first American +medical treatise, Cadwallader's _Essay on the West India Dry Gripes_, and +James Logan's translation of Cato's _Moral Distichs_, which Franklin +regarded as his _chef d'oeuvre_, and which is said to have been the first +book in the Latin tongue to have been both translated and printed in +America. Worthy of mention also are various publications on the subject of +slavery, precursors of the endless succession a little later on of +anti-slavery tracts, books and speeches, which anon became a mountain. The +mercantile business, of which Franklin's stationery shop was the nucleus, +was of a highly miscellaneous character. In addition to books and pamphlets +printed by himself, he imported and sold many others including chapmen's +books and ballads. + + At the time I establish'd myself in Pennsylvania [he + tells us in the _Autobiography_], there was not a good + bookseller's shop in any of the Colonies to the + southward of Boston. In New York and Philad'a the + printers were indeed stationers; they sold only paper, + etc., almanacs, ballads, and a few common school-books. + Those who lov'd reading were oblig'd to send for their + books from England. + +The spirit in which he imported the pamphlets sold by him is indicated in +one of his letters to Strahan. "Let me have everything, good or bad, that +makes a Noise and has a Run," he says. His stock of merchandise included +everything usually sold at a stationer's shop such as good writing paper, +choice writing parchment, cyphering slates and pencils, Holman's ink +powders, ivory pocket books, pounce and pounce boxes, sealing wax, wafers, +pencils, fountain pens, choice English quills, brass inkhorns, and sand +glasses. There were besides "fine mezzotints, a great variety of maps, +cheap pictures engraved on copper plate of all sorts of birds, beasts, +fishes, fruits, flowers etc., useful to such as would learn to draw." Along +with these things, and choice consignments of the Franklin Crown Soap, were +vended articles almost as varied as the contents of a junkshop, such as +the following: + + very good sack at 6s per gallon, glaz'd fulling papers + and bonnet-papers, very good lamp-black, very good + chocolate, linseed oil, very good coffee, compasses and + scales, Seneca rattlesnake root, with directions how to + use it in the pleurisy &c, dividers and protractors, a + very good second hand two-wheel chaise, a very neat, + new fashion'd vehicle, or four wheel'd chaise, very + convenient to carry weak or other sick persons, old or + young, good Rhode Island cheese and codfish, quadrants, + forestaffs, nocturnals, mariner's compasses, season'd + murchantable boards, coarse and fine edgings, fine + broad scarlet cloth, fine broad black cloth, fine white + thread hose and English sale duck, very good iron + stoves, a large horse fit for a chair or saddle, the + true and genuine Godfrey's cordial, choice bohea tea, + very good English saffron, New York Lottery tickets, + choice makrel, to be sold by the barrel, a large copper + still, very good spermacety, fine palm oyl, very good + Temple spectacles and a new fishing net. + +Another commodity in which Franklin dealt was the unexpired time of +indentured or bond servants, who had sold their services for a series of +years in return for transportation to America. This traffic is illustrated +in such advertisements in the _Gazette_ as these: "To be sold. A likely +servant woman, having three years and a half to serve. She is a good +spinner"; "To be sold. A likely servant lad about 15 years of age, and has +6 years to serve." And alas! the humanitarian, who strove so earnestly, +during the closing years of his life, when he was famous and rich, and the +President of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of +Slavery, to bring home the horrors of slavery to the Southern conscience, +was himself what involved until the end utter social disrepute in the +slaveholding South, that is to say, a negro-trader. "Some of these slaves," +Paul Leicester Ford tells us in _The_ _Many Sided Franklin_, "he procured +from New England where, as population grew in density, the need for them +passed, leading to their sale in the colonies to the southward." The +business was certainly a repulsive one, even when conducted by such a lover +of the human species as Franklin. How far this is true the reader can judge +for himself when he reads the following advertisements, which are but two +of the many of the same kind that appeared in the _Gazette_: + + To be sold a likely negro woman, with a man-child, fit + for town or country business. Enquire of the printer + hereof. + + To be sold. A prime able young negro man, fit for + laborious work, in town or country, that has had the + small pox: As also a middle aged negro man, that has + likewise had the small pox. Enquire of the printer + hereof: Or otherwise they will be expos'd to sale by + publick vendue, on Saturday the 11th of April next, at + 12 o'clock, at the Indian-king, in Market Street. + +While Franklin was printing pamphlets against slavery and selling negroes, +and Deborah was stitching pamphlets and vending old rags, Mrs. Read, the +mother of Deborah, was engaged in compounding and vending an ointment +suited to conditions still graver than those for which the Franklin Crown +Soap was intended. We can hardly doubt that this advertisement, which was +published in the _Gazette_, was penned by the same hand which wrote the +_Ephemera_: + + The Widow Read, removed from the upper End of High + Street to the _New Printing Office_ near the Market, + continues to make and sell her well-known Ointment for + the ITCH, with which she has cured abundance of People + in and about this City for many Years past. It is + always effectual for that purpose, and never fails to + perform the Cure speedily. It also kills or drives away + all Sorts of Lice in once or twice using. It has no + offensive Smell, but rather a pleasant one; and may be + used without the least Apprehension of Danger, even to + a sucking Infant, being perfectly innocent and safe. + Price 2s. a Galleypot containing an Ounce; which is + sufficient to remove the most inveterate Itch, and + render the Skin clear and smooth. + +The same advertisement informed the public that the Widow Read also +continued to make and sell her excellent _Family Salve_ or Ointment, for +Burns or Scalds, (Price 1s. an Ounce) and several other Sorts of Ointments +and Salves as usual. + +From this review of the business career of Franklin, it will be seen that +the stairway, by which he climbed to pecuniary independence and his wider +fame, though not long, was, in its earlier gradations, hewn step by step +from the rock. From the printing office of Keimer to Versailles and the +_salon_ of Madame Helvétius was no primrose path. As long as the human +struggle in its thousand forms, for subsistence and preferment, goes on, as +long as from year to year youth continues to be rudely pushed over the edge +of the nest, with no reliance except its own strength of wing, it is safe +to say that the first chapters of the _Autobiography_ will remain a +powerful incentive to human hope and ambition. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[6] In 1723 the town of New York had a population of seven or eight +thousand persons. + +[7] In his edition of Franklin's works, vol. x., p. 154, Smyth says of him, +when he was in London in his youth, "His nights were spent in cynical +criticism of religion or in the company of dissolute women." It is likely +enough that the religious skepticism of Franklin at this time found +expression in his conversation as well as in his _Dissertation on Liberty +and Necessity_, though there is no evidence to justify the extreme +statement that his nights _were spent_ in irreligious talk. His days, we do +know, were partly spent in listening to London preachers. He may have had +good reason, too, to utter a _peccavi_ in other sexual relations than those +that he so disastrously attempted to sustain to Ralph's mistress; but of +this there is no evidence whatever. + +[8] The ineffaceable impression of gratitude left upon the mind of Franklin +by the timely assistance of these two dear friends was again expressed in +the Codicil to his Will executed in 1789. In it he speaks of himself as +"assisted to set up" his business in Philadelphia by kind loans of money +from two friends there, which was the foundation, he said, of his fortune +and of all the utility in life that might be ascribed to him. + +[9] The interest of Franklin in the Art of Printing did not end with his +retirement from his vocation as a printer. When he arrived in England in +1757, he is said to have visited the composing-room at Watts' printing +establishment, where he was employed many years before, and to have +celebrated the occasion by giving to the composing force there a +_bienvenu_, or fee for drink, and proposing as a toast "Success to +Printing." The type of Baskerville, the "charming Editions" of Didot _le +Jeune_, the even finer _Sallust_, and _Don Quixote_ of Madrid, and the +method of cementing letters, conceived by John Walter, the founder of the +_London Times_, all came in for his appreciative attention. It is said that +the process of stereotyping was first communicated to Didot by him. When he +visited the establishment of the latter, in 1780, he turned to one of his +presses, and printed off several sheets with an ease which excited the +astonishment of the printers about him. Until the close of his life he had +a keen eye for a truly black ink and superfine printing paper and all the +other niceties of his former calling. The only trace of eccentricity in his +life is to be found in his methods of punctuation, which are marked by a +sad lack of uniformity in the use of commas, semicolons and colons, and by +the lavish employment of the devices to denote emphasis which someone has +happily termed "typographical yells." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +Franklin as a Statesman + + +The career of Franklin as a public official began in 1736, when he was +appointed Clerk of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania. In this position, +he remained until his retirement from business precipitated so many +political demands upon him that he had to give it up for still higher +responsibilities. + + The publick [he says in the _Autobiography_] now + considering me as a man of leisure, laid hold of me for + their purposes, every part of our civil government, and + almost at the same time, imposing some duty upon me. + The Governor put me into the commission of the peace; + the corporation of the city chose me of the common + council, and soon after an alderman; and the citizens + at large chose me a burgess to represent them in + Assembly.[10] + +His legislative seat was all the more agreeable to him because he had grown +tired as clerk of listening to debates in which he could take no part, and +which were frequently so lifeless that for very weariness he had to amuse +himself with drawing magic squares or circles, or what not, as he sat at +his desk. The office of justice of the peace he withdrew from by degrees, +when he found that, to fill it with credit, more knowledge of the common +law was requisite than he possessed, and, in this connection, the belief +maybe hazarded that his influence in Congress and the Federal Convention of +1787 would have been still greater, if he had been a better lawyer, and, +therefore, more competent to cope in debate with contemporaries fitter than +he was to discuss questions which, true to the time-honored Anglo-Saxon +traditions, turned largely upon the provisions of charters and statutes. +That he was lacking in fluency of speech we have, as we have seen, his own +admission--a species of evidence, however, by no means conclusive in the +case of a man so little given to self-praise as he was. But there is +testimony to convince us that, as a debater, Franklin was, at least, not +deficient in the best characteristic of a good debater, that of placing the +accent upon the truly vital points of his case. + + I served [declares Jefferson] with General Washington + in the legislature of Virginia, before the revolution, + and, during it, with Dr. Franklin in Congress. I never + heard either of them speak ten minutes at a time, nor + to any but the main point, which was to decide the + question. They laid their shoulders to the great + points, knowing that the little ones would follow of + themselves. + +What John Adams has to say about Franklin as a legislator is manifestly the +offspring of mere self-love. After taking a view of his own legislative +activity through the highly magnifying lens, which he brought to bear upon +everything relating to himself, he pictures Franklin in Congress as "from +day to day, sitting in silence, a great part of his time fast asleep in his +chair." + +But whatever were the demerits of Franklin as a speaker, his influence was +very great in every legislative assembly in which he ever sat. To begin +with, he had the kind of eloquence that gives point to his own saying, +"Whose life lightens, his words thunder." Commenting in the latter part of +his career to Lord Fitzmaurice upon the stress laid by Demosthenes upon +action as the point of first importance in oratory, he said that he + + thought another kind of action of more importance to an + orator, who would persuade people to follow his advice, + viz. such a course of action in the conduct of life, as + would impress them with an opinion of his integrity as + well as of his understanding; that, this opinion once + established, all the difficulties, delays, and + oppositions, usually occasioned by doubts and + suspicions, were prevented; and such a man, though a + very imperfect speaker, would almost always carry his + points against the most flourishing orator, who had not + the character of sincerity. + +In the next place, Franklin's rare knowledge and wisdom made him an +invaluable counsellor for any deliberative gathering. He was the +protagonist in the Pennsylvania Assembly of the Popular Party, in its +contest with the Proprietary Party, and was for a brief time its Speaker. +As soon as he returned from Europe, at the beginning of the Revolution, he +was thrice honored by being elected to the Continental Congress, the +Pennsylvania Assembly, and the Convention to frame a constitution for +Pennsylvania. Besides appointing him Postmaster-General, Congress placed +him upon many of its most important committees; the Assembly made him +Chairman of its Committee of Safety, a post equivalent, for all practical +purposes, to the executive headship of the Province; and the Convention +made him its President. It is safe to say that, had there not been a +Washington, even his extreme old age and physical infirmities would not +have kept him from being the presiding officer of the Federal Convention of +1787 and the first President of the United States. The intellect of +Franklin was too solid to be easily imposed upon by mere glibness of +speech. "Here comes the orator, with his flood of words and his drop of +reason," remarks Poor Richard. Equally pointed is that other saying of his, +"The worst wheel of the cart makes the most noise." But Franklin was fully +alive to the splendid significance of human eloquence, when enlisted in the +service of high-minded and far-seeing statesmanship. Speaking in a letter +to Lord Stanhope of Lord Chatham's speech in support of his motion for the +removal of the King's troops from Boston, he said, "Dr. F. is fill'd with +admiration of that truly great Man. He has seen, in the course of Life, +sometimes Eloquence without Wisdom, and often Wisdom without Eloquence; in +the present Instance he sees both united; and both, as he thinks, in the +highest Degree possible." + +When Franklin took his seat in the Assembly, William Franklin was elected +its clerk in his place; for heredity as well as consanguinity was a feature +of the Franklin system of patronage. Once elected to the Assembly, he +acquired a degree of popularity and influence that rendered his re-election +for many years almost a matter of course. "My election to this trust," he +says in the _Autobiography_, "was repeated every year for ten years, +without my ever asking any elector for his vote, or signifying, either +directly or indirectly, any desire of being chosen." So eager were his +constituents to confer the honor upon him that they kept on conferring it +upon him year after year, even when he was abroad.[11] He proved himself +eminently worthy of this confidence. By nature and training, he was a true +democrat, profoundly conservative at the core, but keenly sensitive to +every rational and wholesome appeal to his liberal or generous instincts. +He loved law and order, stable institutions, and settled forms and +tendencies, rooted in the soil of transmitted wisdom and experience. He was +too much of an Englishman to have any sympathy with hasty changes or rash +innovations. Much as he loved France he could never have been drawn into +such a delirious outburst as the French Revolution. He loved liberty as +Hampden loved it, as Chatham loved it, as Gladstone loved it. John Wilkes, +though in some respects an ignoble, was in other respects an indubitable +champion of English freedom; yet Franklin utterly failed to see in him even +a case for the application of his reminder to his daughter that sweet and +clear waters come through very dirty earth. His happy nature and his faith +in individual thrift sometimes made him slow to believe that masses of men +had as much cause for political discontent as they claimed, and for such +mob violence, as attended the career of Wilkes, of whom he speaks in one of +his letters to his son as "an outlaw and an exile, of bad personal +character, not worth a farthing," it was impossible for his deep-seated +respect for law and order to have any toleration; though he did express on +one occasion the remarkable conviction that, if George the Third had had a +bad private character, and John Wilkes a good one, the latter might have +turned the former out of his kingdom. + +It is certain, however, that few men have ever detested more strongly than +he did the baseness and meanness of arbitrary power. And he had little +patience at the same time with conditions of any sort that rested upon mere +precedent, or prescription. He welcomed every new triumph of science over +inert matter, every fresh victory of truth over superstition, bigotry, or +the unseeing eye, every salutary reform that vindicated the fitness of the +human race for its destiny of unceasing self-advancement. His underlying +instincts were firmly fixed in the ground, but his sympathies reached out +on every side into the free air of expanding human hopes and aspirations. +In his faith in the residuary wisdom and virtue of the mass of men, he is +more like Jefferson than any of his Revolutionary compeers. "The People +seldom continue long in the wrong, when it is nobody's Interest to mislead +them," he wrote to Abel James. The tribute, it must be confessed, is a +rather equivocal one, as it is always somebody's interest to mislead the +People, but the sanguine spirit of the observation pervades all his +relations to popular caprice or resentment. Less equivocal was his +statement to Galloway: "The People do not indeed always see their Friends +in the same favourable Light; they are sometimes mistaken, and sometimes +misled; but sooner or later they come right again, and redouble their +former Affection." Few were the public men of his age who looked otherwise +than askance at universal suffrage, but he was not one of them. + + Liberty, or freedom [he declared in his _Some Good Whig + Principles_], consists in having _an actual share_ in + the appointment of those who frame the laws, and who + are to be the guardians of every man's life, property, + and peace; for the _all_ of one man is as dear to him + as the _all_ of another; and the poor man has an + _equal_ right, but _more_ need, to have representatives + in the legislature than the rich one. + +For similar reasons he was opposed to entails, and favored the application +of the just and equal law of gavelkind to the division of intestate +estates. + +It was impossible for such a man as this not to ally himself with the +popular cause, when he became a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly. At +that time, the Proprietary Government of Pennsylvania had proved as odious +to the people of the Province as the proprietary governments of South +Carolina and the Jerseys had proved to the people of those Colonies. Almost +from the time of the original settlement, the relations between the +Assembly and the Penns had been attended by mutual bickerings and +reproaches. First William Penn had scolded the Assembly in a high key, then +his sons; and, in resolution after resolution, the Assembly had, in true +British fashion, stubbornly asserted the liberties and privileges of their +constituents, and given the Proprietary Government, under thinly veiled +forms of parliamentary deference, a Roland for its every Oliver. The truth +was that a Proprietary Government, uniting as it did governmental +functions, dependent for their successful exercise upon the popular faith +in the disinterestedness of those who exercised them, with the selfish +concerns of a landlord incessantly at loggerheads with his vendees and +tenants over purchase money and quitrents, was utterly incompatible with +the dignity of real political rule,[12] and hopelessly repugnant to the +free English spirit of the Pennsylvanians. Under such circumstances, there +could be no such thing as a true commonwealth; nor anything much better +than a feudal fief. Political sovereignty lost its aspect of detachment and +legitimate authority in the eyes of the governed, and wore the appearance +of a mere organization for the transaction of private business. Almost as a +matter of course, the Proprietaries came to think and speak of the Province +as if it were as much their personal property as one of their household +chattels, refusing, as Franklin said, to give their assent to laws, unless +some private advantage was obtained, some profit got or unequal exemption +gained for their estate, or some privilege wrested from the people; and +almost, as a matter of course, the disaffected people of the Province +sullenly resented a situation so galling to their pride and self-respect. +Franklin saw all this with his usual clearness. After conceding in his +_Cool Thoughts_ that it was not unlikely that there were faults on both +sides, "every glowing Coal being apt to inflame its Opposite," he expressed +the opinion that the cause of the contentions was + + radical, interwoven in the Constitution, and so become + of the very Nature, of Proprietary Governments. And [he + added] as some Physicians say, every Animal Body brings + into the World among its original Stamina the Seeds of + that Disease that shall finally produce its + Dissolution; so the Political Body of a Proprietary + Government, contains those convulsive Principles that + will at length destroy it. + +The Proprietary Government of Pennsylvania was bad enough in principle; it +was made still worse by the unjust and greedy manner in which it was +administered by Thomas and Richard Penn, who were the Proprietaries, when +Franklin became a member of the Assembly. The vast estate of William Penn +in Pennsylvania, consisting of some twenty-six million acres of land, held +subject to the nominal obligation of the owner to pay to the King one fifth +of such gold and silver as the Province might yield, descended upon the +death of Penn to his sons John, Thomas and Richard, in the proportion of +one half to John, as the eldest son, and in the proportion of one fourth +each to Thomas and Richard. John died in 1746, after devising his one half +share to Thomas; thus making Thomas the owner of three out of the four +shares.[13] The political powers of the Proprietaries were exercised by a +deputy-governor whose position was in the highest degree vexatious and +perplexing. He held his office by appointment of the Proprietaries, who +resided in England, and the mode in which he was to discharge his duties +was prescribed by rigid "instructions," issued to him by them. His salary, +however, was derived from the Assembly, which was rarely at peace with the +Proprietary Government. If he obeyed his instructions, he ran the risk of +losing his salary; if he disobeyed them, he was certain to lose his place. +Incredible as it may now seem, the main duty imposed upon him by his +instructions was that of vetoing every tax bill enacted by the Assembly +which did not expressly exempt all the located, unimproved and unoccupied +lands of the Proprietaries, and all the quitrents, fines and purchase money +out at interest, to which they were entitled, that is to say, the greater +part of their immense estate. This was the axis about which the bitter +controversy between the Popular and Proprietary parties, in which Franklin +acquired his political training and reputation, revolved like one of the +lurid waterspouts with which a letter that his correspondent John Perkins +received from him has been illustrated. The Assembly insisted that they +should not be required to vote money for the support of the Proprietary +Government, unless the proprietary estate bore its proper share of the +common burden. The Governor did not dare to violate his instructions for +fear of being removed by his masters, and of being sued besides on the bond +by which he had bound himself not to violate them. At times, the feud was +so intense and absorbing, that, like a pair of gamecocks, too intent on +their own deadly encounter to hear an approaching footstep, the combatants +almost lost sight of the fact that, under the shelter of their dissensions, +the Indian was converting the frontiers of Pennsylvania into a charred and +blood-stained wilderness. Occasionally the Assembly had to yield the point +with a reservation asserting that its action was not to be taken as a +precedent, and once, when England as well as America was feeling the shock +of Braddock's defeat, the pressure of public opinion in England was +sufficient to coerce the Proprietaries into adding five thousand pounds to +the sum appropriated by the Assembly for the defence of the Province. But, +as a general thing, there was little disposition on either side to +compromise. The sharpness of the issue was well illustrated in the bill +tendered by the Assembly to Governor Morris for his signature after +Braddock's defeat. Both before, and immediately after that catastrophe, he +had, in reliance upon the critical condition of the public safety, +endeavored to drive the Assembly into providing for the defence of the +Province without calling upon the proprietary estate for a contribution. +The bill in question declared "that all estates, real and personal, were to +be taxed, those of the proprietaries _not_ excepted." "His amendment," says +Franklin in his brief way, "was, for _not_ read _only_; a small, but very +material alteration."[14] + +This dependence of the Governor upon the Assembly for his salary and the +dependence of the Assembly upon the Governor for the approval of its +enactments brought about a traffic in legislation between them which was +one of the most disgraceful features of the Proprietary régime; though it +became so customary that even the most honorable Governor did not scruple +to engage in it. This traffic is thus described by Franklin in his stirring +"Preface to the Speech of Joseph Galloway, Esq.": + + Ever since the Revenue of the Quit-rents first, and + after that the Revenue of Tavern-Licenses, were settled + irrevocably on our Proprietaries and Governors, they + have look'd on those Incomes as their proper Estate, + for which they were under no Obligations to the People: + And when they afterwards concurr'd in passing any + useful Laws, they considered them as so many Jobbs, for + which they ought to be particularly paid. Hence arose + the Custom of Presents twice a Year to the Governors, + at the close of each Session in which Laws were past, + given at the Time of Passing. They usually amounted to + a Thousand Pounds per Annum. But when the Governors and + Assemblies disagreed, so that Laws were not pass'd, the + Presents were withheld. When a Disposition to agree + ensu'd, there sometimes still remain'd some Diffidence. + The Governors would not pass the Laws that were wanted, + without being sure of the Money, even all that they + call'd their Arrears; nor the Assemblies give the Money + without being sure of the Laws. Thence the Necessity of + some private Conference, in which mutual Assurances of + good Faith might be receiv'd and given, that the + Transactions should go hand in hand. + +This system of barter prevailed even before Franklin became a member of the +Assembly, and how fixed and ceremonious its forms sometimes were we can +infer from what happened on one of the semi-annual market days during +Governor Thomas' administration. Various bills were lying dormant in his +hands. Accordingly the House ordered two of its members to call upon him +and acquaint him that it had long "waited for his Result" on these bills, +and desired to know when they might expect it. They returned and reported +that the Governor was pleased to say that he had had the bills long under +consideration, and "_waited the Result_" of the House. Then, after the +House had resolved itself into a committee of the whole, for the purpose of +taking the "Governor's support" into consideration, there was a further +interchange of communications between the House and the Governor; the +former reporting "some progress" to the Governor, and the Governor replying +that, as he had received assurances of a "_good disposition_," on the part +of the House, he thought it incumbent upon him to show _the like_ on his +part by sending down the bills, which lay before him, without any +amendment. The manifestation of a good disposition was not the same thing +as an actual promise to approve the bills; so the wary assembly simply +resolved that, on the passage of such bills as then lay before the +Governor, and of the Naturalization Bill, and such other bills as might be +presented to him during the pending session, there should be paid to him +the sum of five hundred pounds; and that, on the passage of the same bills, +there should be paid to him the further sum of one thousand pounds for the +current year's support. Agreeably with this resolution, orders were drawn +on the Treasurer and Trustees of the Loan-Office, and, when the Governor +was informed of the fact, he appointed a time for passing the bills which +was done with one hand, while he received the orders in the other. +Thereupon with the utmost politeness he thanked the House for the fifteen +hundred pounds as if it had been a free gift, and a mere mark of respect +and affection. "_I thank you_, Gentlemen," he said, "for this _Instance_ of +_your Regard_; which I am the more pleased with, as it gives an agreeable +Prospect of _future Harmony_ between me and the Representatives of the +People." + +Despicably enough, while this treaty was pending, the Penns had a written +understanding with the Governor, secured by his bond, that they were to +receive a share of all money thus obtained from the people whom they sought +to load with the entire weight of taxation. Indeed, emboldened as Franklin +said by the declining sense of shame, that always follows frequent +repetitions of sinning, they later in Governor Denny's time had the +effrontery to claim openly, in a written reply to a communication from the +Assembly, with respect to their refusal to bear any part of the expenses +entailed on the Province by the Indians, that the excess of these donatives +over and above the salary of the Governor should belong to them. By the +Constitution, they said, their consent was essential to the validity of the +laws enacted by the People, and it would tend the better to facilitate the +several matters, which had to be transacted with them, for the +representatives of the People to show a regard to them and their interest. +The Assembly hotly replied that they hoped that they would always be able +to obtain needful laws from the goodness of their sovereign without going +to the market for them to a subject. But the hope was a vain one, and to +that market, directly or indirectly, the People of Pennsylvania still had +to go, for some time to come. To use Franklin's language, there was no +other market that they could go to for the commodity that they wanted. + + Do not, my courteous Reader [he exclaims with fine + scorn in the "Preface to the Speech of Joseph Galloway, + Esq."] take Pet at our Proprietary Constitution, for + these our Bargain and Sale Proceedings in Legislation. + 'Tis a happy Country where Justice, and what was your + own before, can be had for Ready Money. 'Tis another + Addition to the Value of Money, and of Course another + Spur to Industry. Every Land is not so bless'd. There + are Countries where the princely Proprietor claims to + be Lord of all Property; where what is your own shall + not only be wrested from you, but the Money you give to + have it restor'd, shall be kept with it, and your + offering so much, being a Sign of your being too Rich, + you shall be plunder'd of every Thing that remain'd. + These Times are not come here yet: Your present + Proprietors have never been more unreasonable hitherto, + than barely to insist on your Fighting in Defence of + their Property, and paying the Expences yourselves; or + if their estates must, (ah! _must_) be tax'd towards + it, that the _best_ of their Lands shall be tax'd no + higher than the _worst_ of yours. + +Governor Hamilton, who succeeded Governor Thomas, so far departed from the +vicious practice of buying and selling laws as to sign them without +prepayment, but, when he observed that the Assembly was tardy in making +payment, and yet asked him to give his assent to additional laws, before +prior ones had been paid for, he stated his belief to it that as many +useful laws had been enacted by him as by any of his predecessors in the +same space of time, and added that, nevertheless, he had not understood +that any allowance had been made to him for his support, as had been +customary in the Province. The hint proved effective, the money was paid +and the bills were approved. + +From the time that Franklin became a member of the Assembly until the time +that the minor controversy between the Proprietary Party and the Popular +Party in Pennsylvania was obscured by the larger controversy between the +Crown and all the American Colonies, he was engaged in an almost +uninterrupted struggle with the Proprietaries, first, for the annulment of +their claim to exemption from taxation, and, secondly, for the displacement +of their government by a Royal Government. If there was ever an interlude +in this struggle, it was only because, in devising measures for the defence +of the Province, a Proprietary Governor found it necessary, at some trying +conjuncture, to rely upon the management of Franklin to quiet the Quakers, +who constituted a majority of the Assembly and detested both war and the +Proprietaries, or upon the general abilities and popularity of Franklin to +strengthen his own feeble counsels. If there was any political tranquillity +in the Province during this time, it was, to employ one of Franklin's own +comparisons, only such tranquillity as exists in a naval engagement between +two broadsides. On the one hand were ranged the official partisans and +dependents of the Proprietary Government and other adherents of the kind, +whose allegiance is likely to be won by the social prestige and political +patronage of executive authority. To this faction, in the latter stages of +the conflict, was added a large body of Presbyterians whose sectarian +sympathies had been excited by the Scotch-Irish uprising against the +Indians, of which we have previously spoken. On the other hand were ranged +the Quakers, upon whom the burden of resisting the Proprietary +encroachments upon the popular rights had mainly rested from the origin of +the Province, and middle-class elements of the population whose views and +sympathies were not highly colored by any special influences. The task of +preparing resolutions, addresses and remonstrances, voicing the popular +criticism of the Proprietaries, was mainly committed to Franklin by the +Assembly. It was with him, too, as the ablest and most influential +representative of the popular interest that the various Proprietary +Governors usually dealt. + +We first find him high in favor with Governor Thomas and his Council at the +time of the Association because of his activity, when still only Clerk of +the Assembly, in providing for the defence of the Province and arousing a +martial spirit in its people. This was the period when the Quaker found it +necessary to help his conscience out a little with his wit, and when +Franklin made good use of the principle that men will countenance many +things with their backs that they will not countenance with their faces. +The Quaker majority in the Assembly did not relish his intimacy at this +time with the members of the Council who had so often trod on their +punctilio about military expenditures, and it might have been pleased, he +conjectured, if he had voluntarily resigned his clerkship; "but," he +declares in the _Autobiography_, "they did not care to displace me on +account merely of my zeal for the association, and they could not well give +another reason." + +Governor Hamilton became so sick of the broils, in which he was involved by +the Proprietary instructions, that he resigned. His successor was the +Governor Morris whose father loved disputation so much that he encouraged +his children to practise it when he was digesting his dinner. Franklin met +him at New York when he was on his way to Boston, and Morris was on his way +to Philadelphia to enter upon his duties as Governor. So ready for a war of +words was the new Governor that, when Franklin returned from Boston to +Philadelphia, he and the House had already come to blows, and the conflict +never ceased as long as he remained Governor. In the conflict, Franklin +was his chief antagonist. Whenever a speech or message of the Governor was +to be answered, he was made a member of the Committee appointed to answer +it, and by such committees he was invariably selected to draft the answer. +"Our answers," he says, "as well as his messages, were often tart, and +sometimes indecently abusive." But the Governor was at heart an amiable +man, and Franklin, resolute as he was, when his teeth were fairly set, had +no black blood in his veins. Though one might have imagined, he says, that +he and the Governor could not meet without cutting throats, so little +personal ill-will arose between them that they even often dined together. + + One afternoon [he tells us in the _Autobiography_] in + the height of this public quarrel, we met in the + street. "Franklin," says he, "you must go home with me + and spend the evening; I am to have some company that + you will like"; and, taking me by the arm, he led me to + his house. In gay conversation over our wine, after + supper, he told us, jokingly, that he much admir'd the + idea of Sancho Panza, who, when it was proposed to give + him a government, requested it might be a government of + _blacks_, as then, if he could not agree with his + people, he might sell them. One of his friends, who sat + next to me, says, "Franklin, why do you continue to + side with these damn'd Quakers? Had you not better sell + them? The Proprietor would give you a good price." "The + Governor," says I, "has not yet _blacked_ them enough." + He, indeed, had laboured hard to blacken the Assembly + in all his messages, but they wip'd off his colouring + as fast as he laid it on, and plac'd it, in return, + thick upon his own face; so that, finding he was likely + to be negrofied himself, he, as well as Mr. Hamilton, + grew tir'd of the contest, and quitted the Government. + +All these disputes originated in the instructions given by the +Proprietaries to their Governors not to approve any tax measure enacted by +the Assembly that did not expressly exempt their estates; conduct which +Franklin justly terms in the _Autobiography_ "incredible meanness." + +The ability of Governor Morris to keep on good terms with Franklin in spite +of the perpetual wrangling between the Assembly and himself Franklin +sometimes thought was due to the fact that the Governor was bred a lawyer +and regarded him as simply the advocate of the Assembly and himself as +simply the advocate of the Proprietaries. However this was, he sometimes +called upon Franklin in a friendly way to advise with him on different +points; and occasionally, though not often, Franklin tells us, took his +advice. But when the miserable fugitives, who escaped from the _Aceldama_ +on the Monongahela, brought back to the settlements their awful tale of +carnage and horror, and Dunbar and his rout were cravenly seeking the +protection of those whom they should have protected, Governor Morris was +only too glad to consult, and take the advice of, the strongest man on the +American Continent, except the gallant Virginian, young in years, but from +early responsibilities and hardships, as well as native wisdom and +intrepidity, endowed with a calm judgment and tempered courage far beyond +his years, whom Providence almost seemed to have taken under its direct +guardianship for its future purposes on the day that Braddock fell. Later, +when it appeared as if the Indians would carry desolation and death into +the very bowels of Pennsylvania, the Governor was equally glad to place +Franklin in charge of its Northwestern Frontier, and to thrust blank +military commissions into his hands to be filled up by him as he pleased. +And later still, when the desire of the Governor to consult with Franklin +about the proper measures for preventing the desertion of the back counties +of Pennsylvania had brought the latter home from the Northwestern Frontier, +the Governor did not hesitate, in planning an expedition against Fort +Duquesne, to offer Franklin a commission as general. If Franklin had +accepted the offer, we are justified, we think, in assuming that he would +have won at least as high a degree of credit as that which he accorded to +Shirley. "For tho' Shirley," he tells us in the _Autobiography_, "was not a +bred soldier, he was sensible and sagacious in himself, and attentive to +good advice from others, capable of forming judicious plans, and quick and +active in carrying them into execution." No mean summary of the military +virtues of Franklin himself as a citizen soldier. But Franklin knew the +limitations of his training too well to be allured by such a deceitful +honor. There were few civil tasks to which he was not equal, but, when it +came to being a military commander, he had the good sense to make an +admission like that which Shirley made to him. When a banquet was given to +Lord Loudon by the city of New York, Shirley was present, though the +occasion was due to the fact that the command previously held by him had +just been transferred to Loudon. Franklin noticed that he was sitting in a +very low seat. "They have given you, sir, too low a seat," he said. "No +matter, Mr. Franklin," replied Shirley, "I find _a low seat_ the easiest." +When Governor Morris saw that, disputatious as he was, he was no match in +that respect for the Assembly, he was succeeded by Governor Denny, who +brought over with him from England the gold medal awarded by the Royal +Society to Franklin for his electrical discoveries. This honor as well as +the political experience of his predecessors was calculated to impress upon +the Governor the importance of being on good terms with Franklin. At all +events, when the medal was delivered by him to Franklin at a public dinner +given to himself, after his arrival at Philadelphia, he added to the gift +some very polite expressions of his esteem, and assured Franklin that he +had long known him by reputation. After dinner, he left the diners with +their wine, and took Franklin aside into another room, and told him that he +had been advised by his friends in England to cultivate a friendship with +him as the man who was best able to give him good advice, and to make his +task easy. Much also was said by the Governor about the good disposition of +the Proprietary towards the Province and the advantage that it would be to +everyone and to Franklin particularly if the long opposition to the +Proprietary was abandoned, and harmony between him and the people restored. +No one, said the Governor, could be more serviceable in bringing this about +than Franklin himself, who might depend upon his services being duly +acknowledged and recompensed. "The drinkers," the _Autobiography_ goes on, +"finding we did not return immediately to the table, sent us a decanter of +Madeira, which the Governor made liberal use of, and in proportion became +more profuse of his solicitations and promises." + +To these overtures Franklin replied in a proper strain of mingled +independence and good feeling, and concluded by expressing the hope that +the Governor had not brought with him the same unfortunate instructions as +his predecessors. The only answer that the Governor ever gave to this +inquiry was given when he settled down to the duties of his office. It then +became plain enough that he was under exactly the same instructions as his +predecessors; the old ulcer broke out afresh, and Franklin's pen was soon +again prodding Proprietary selfishness. But through it all he contrived to +maintain the same relations of personal amity with Governor Denny that he +had maintained with Governor Morris. "Between us personally," he says, "no +enmity arose; we were often together; he was a man of letters, had seen +much of the world, and was very entertaining and pleasing in conversation." +But the situation, so far as the Province was concerned, was too grievous +to be longer borne without an appeal for relief to the Crown. The Assembly +had enacted a bill, appropriating the sum of sixty thousand pounds for the +King's use, ten thousand pounds of which were to be expended on Lord +Loudon's orders, and the Governor, in compliance with his instructions, had +refused to give it his approval. This brought things to a head, the House +resolved to petition the King to override the instructions and Franklin was +appointed its agent to go over to England and present the petition. His +passage was engaged, his sea-stores were actually all on board, when Lord +Loudon himself came over to Philadelphia for the express purpose of +bringing about an accommodation between the jarring interests. The Governor +and Franklin met him at his request, and opened their minds fully to him; +Franklin revamping all the old popular arguments, so often urged by him, +and the Governor pleading his instructions, the bond that he had given and +the ruin that awaited him if he disregarded it. "Yet," says Franklin, +"seemed not unwilling to hazard himself if Lord Loudon would advise it." +This his Lordship did not choose to do, though Franklin once thought that +he had nearly prevailed on him to do it; and finally he entreated Franklin +to use his influence with the Assembly to induce it to yield, promising, if +it did, to employ unsparingly the King's troops for the defence of the +frontiers of Pennsylvania, but stating that, if it did not, those frontiers +must remain exposed to hostile incursion. The result was that the packet, +in which Franklin engaged passage, sailed off with his sea-stores, while +the parties were palavering, and the Assembly, after entering a formal +protest against the duress, under which it gave way, abandoned its bill, +and enacted another with the hateful exemption in it which was promptly +approved by the Governor. + +Franklin was now free to embark upon his voyage, whenever he could find a +ship ready to sail, but, unfortunately for him, all the packets by which he +could sail were at the beck of Lord Loudon, who was the most vacillating of +human beings. When Franklin, before leaving Philadelphia, inquired of him +the precise time at which a packet boat, that he said would be off soon, +would sail, he replied: "I have given out that she is to sail on Saturday +next; but I may let you know, _entre nous_, that if you are there by Monday +morning, you will be in time, but do not delay longer." Because of +detention at a ferry, Franklin did not reach New York before noon on +Monday, but he was relieved, when he arrived, to be told that the packet +would not sail until the next day. This was about the beginning of April. +In point of fact, it was near the end of June when it got off. At the time +of Franklin's arrival in New York, it was one of the two packets, that were +being kept waiting in port for the dispatches, upon which his Lordship +appeared to be always engaged. While thus held up, another packet arrived +only to be placed under the same embargo. Each had a list of impatient +passengers, and many letters and orders for insurance against war risks +from American merchants, but, day after day, his Lordship, entirely +unmindful of the impatience and anxiety that he was creating, sat +continually at his desk, writing his interminable dispatches. Calling one +morning to pay his respects, Franklin found in his ante-chamber Innis, a +Philadelphia messenger, who had brought on a batch of letters to his +Lordship from Governor Denny, and who told Franklin that he was to call the +next day for his Lordship's answer to the Governor, and would then set off +for Philadelphia at once. On the strength of this assurance, Franklin the +same day placed some letters of his own for delivery in that city in Innis' +hands. A fortnight afterwards, he met the messenger in the same +ante-chamber. "So, you are soon return'd, Innis" he said. "_Return'd!_" +replied Innis, "No, I am not _gone_ yet." "How so?" "I have called here by +order every morning these two weeks past for his lordship's letter, and it +is not yet ready." "Is it possible, when he is so great a writer? for I see +him constantly at his escritoire." "Yes," says Innis, "but he is like St. +George on the signs, _always on horseback, and never rides on_." Indeed, so +purely rotatory was all his Lordship's epistolary energy, unremitting as it +seemed to be, that one of the reasons given by William Pitt for +subsequently removing him was that "_the minister never heard from him, and +could not know what he was doing_." Finally, the three packets dropped down +to Sandy Hook to join the British fleet there. Not knowing but that they +might make off any day, their passengers thought it safest to board them +before they dropped down. The consequence was that they found themselves +anchored at Sandy Hook for about six weeks, "as idle as a painted ship upon +a painted ocean," and driven to the necessity of consuming all their +sea-stores and buying more. At length, when the fleet did weigh anchor, +with his Lordship and all his army on board, bound for the reduction of +Louisburg, the three packets were ordered to attend it in readiness to +receive the dispatches which the General was still scribbling upon the +element that was not more mutable than his own purposes. When Franklin had +been five days out, his packet was finally released, and stood off beyond +the reach of his Lordship's indefatigable pen, but the other two packets +were still kept in tow by him all the way to Halifax, where, after +exercising his men for some time in sham attacks on sham forts, he changed +his mind about besieging Louisburg, and returned to New York with all his +troops and the two packets and their passengers. In the meantime, the +French and their savage friends had captured Fort George, and butchered +many of the garrison after its capitulation. The captain of one of the two +packets, that were brought back to New York, afterwards told Franklin in +London that, when he had been detained a month by his Lordship, he +requested his permission to heave his ship down and clear her bottom. He +was asked how long that would require. He answered three days. His Lordship +replied, "If you can do it in one day, I give leave; otherwise not; for +you must certainly sail the day after tomorrow." So he never obtained +leave, though detained afterwards, from day to day, during full three +months. No wonder that an irate passenger, who represented himself as +having suffered considerable pecuniary loss, swore after he finally reached +London in Franklin's presence, that he would sue Lord Loudon for damages. + +As Oxenstiern's son was enjoined by his father to do, Franklin had gone out +into the world and seen with what little wisdom it is ruled. "On the +whole," he says in the _Autobiography_, "I wonder'd much how such a man +came to be intrusted with so important a business as the conduct of a great +army; but, having since seen more of the great world, and the means of +obtaining, and motives for giving places, my wonder is diminished." + +The _Autobiography_ makes it evident enough that for Loudon Franklin came +to entertain the heartiest contempt.[15] His Lordship's movements in 1757 +he stigmatized as frivolous, expensive and disgraceful to the nation beyond +conception. He was responsible, Franklin thought, for the loss of Fort +George, and for the foundering of a large part of the Carolina fleet, +which, for lack of notice from him, remained anchored in the worm-infested +waters of Charleston harbor for three months, after he had raised his +embargo on the exportation of provisions. Nor does Franklin hesitate to +charge that this embargo, while laid on the pretence of cutting off the +enemy from supplies, was in reality laid for the purpose of beating down +the price of provisions in the interest of the contractors, in whose +profits, it was suspected, that Loudon had a share. Not only did his +Lordship decline, on the shallow pretext that he did not wish to mix his +accounts with those of his predecessors, to give Franklin the order that he +had promised him for the payment of the balance, still due him on account +of Braddock's expedition, though liquidated by his own audit, but, when +Franklin urged the fact that he had charged no commission for his services, +as a reason why he should be promptly paid, his Lordship cynically replied, +"O, Sir, you must not think of persuading us that you are no gainer; we +understand better those affairs, and know that everyone concerned in +supplying the army finds means, in the doing it, to fill his own pockets." + +Franklin and his son arrived in London on July 27, 1757. Shortly after he +had settled down in his lodgings, he called upon Dr. Fothergill, whose +counsel he had been advised to obtain, and who thought that, before an +application was made to the British Government, there should be an effort +to reach an understanding with the Penns themselves. Then took place the +interview between Franklin and Lord Granville, at which his Lordship, after +some preliminary discourse, expressed this alarming opinion: + + You Americans have wrong ideas of the nature of your + constitution; you contend that the King's instructions + to his governors are not laws, and think yourselves at + liberty to regard or disregard them at your own + discretion. But those instructions are not like the + pocket instructions given to a minister going abroad, + for regulating his conduct in some trifling point of + ceremony. They are first drawn up by judges learned in + the laws; they are then considered, debated, and + perhaps amended in Council, after which they are signed + by the king. They are then, so far as they relate to + you, the _law of the land_, for the King is the + LEGISLATOR OF THE COLONIES. + +The correctness of this opinion was combated by Franklin. He told his +Lordship that this was new doctrine to him, and that he had always +understood from the American charters that the colonial laws were to be +enacted by the assemblies of the Colonies, and that, once enacted and +assented to by the King, the King could not repeal or alter them, and that, +as the colonial assemblies could not make laws for themselves without his +assent, so he could not make laws for them without their assent. The great +man's reply was as brief as a great man's reply is only too likely to be +when his opinions are questioned by his inferiors. It was merely that +Franklin was totally mistaken. Franklin did not think so, and, concerned +for fear that Lord Granville might be but expressing the sentiment of the +Court, he wrote down what had been said to him as soon as he returned to +his lodgings. The utterance reminded him that some twenty years before a +bill had been introduced into Parliament by the ministry of that time +containing a clause, intended to make the King's instructions laws in the +Colonies, but that the clause had been stricken out of it by the House of +Commons. For this, he said, the Colonies adored the Commons, as their +friends and the friends of liberty, until it afterwards seemed as if they +had refused the point of sovereignty to the King only that they might +reserve it for themselves. + +A meeting between the Proprietaries and Franklin was arranged by Doctor +Fothergill. It assumed the form that such meetings are apt to assume, that +is of mutual professions of an earnest desire to agree, repetition of the +old antagonistic reasonings and a disagreement as stubborn as before. +However, it was agreed that Franklin should reduce the complaints against +the Proprietaries to writing, and that the Proprietaries were to consider +them. When the paper was drawn, they submitted it to their solicitor, +Ferdinand John Paris, who had represented them in the celebrated litigation +between the Penns and the Lords Baltimore over the boundary line between +Pennsylvania and Maryland, and had written all their papers and messages +in their disputes with the Pennsylvania Assembly. "He was," says Franklin, +"a proud, angry man, and as I had occasionally in the answers of the +Assembly treated his papers with some severity, they being really weak in +point of argument and haughty in expression, he had conceived a mortal +enmity to me." With Paris, Franklin refused to discuss the points of his +paper, and the Proprietaries then, on the advice of Paris, placed it in the +hands of the Attorney- and Solicitor-Generals for their opinion and advice. +By them no answer was given for nearly a year, though Franklin frequently +called upon the Proprietaries for an answer only to be told that they had +not yet received the opinion of their learned advisers. What the opinion +was when it was finally rendered the Proprietaries did not let Franklin +know, but instead addressed a long communication, drawn and signed by +Paris, to the Assembly, reciting the contents of Franklin's paper, +complaining of its lack of formality as rudeness, and justifying their +conduct. They would be willing, they said, to compose the dispute, if the +Assembly would send out _some person of candor_ to treat with them. +Franklin supposed that the incivility imputed to him consisted in the fact +that he had not addressed the Proprietaries by their assumed title of True +and Absolute Proprietaries of the Province of Pennsylvania. + +The letter of the Proprietaries was not answered by the Assembly. While +they were pretending to treat with Franklin, Governor Denny had been unable +to withstand the pressure of his situation, and, at the request of Lord +Loudon, had approved an act subjecting the estates of the Penns to +taxation. When this Act was transmitted to England, the Proprietaries, upon +the advice of Paris, petitioned the King to withhold his assent from it, +and, when the petition came on for hearing, the parties were represented by +counsel. On the one hand it was contended that the purpose of the Act was +to impose an oppressive burden upon the Proprietary estates, and that the +assessment under it would be so unequal because of the popular prejudice +against the Penns that they would be ruined. To this it was replied that +the Act was not conceived with any such purpose, and would not have any +such effect, that the assessors were honest and discreet men under oath, +and that any advantage that might inure to them individually from +over-assessing the property of the Proprietaries would be too trifling to +induce them to perjure themselves. It was also urged in opposition to the +petition that the money, for which the Act provided, had been printed and +issued, and was now in the hands of the inhabitants of the Province, and +would be deprived of all value, to their great injury, if the Act did not +receive the royal assent merely because of the selfish and groundless fears +of the Proprietaries. At this point, Lord Mansfield, one of the counsel for +the Proprietaries, led Franklin off into a room nearby, while the other +lawyers were still pleading, and asked him if he was really of the opinion +that the Proprietary estate would not be unfairly taxed if the Act was +executed. "Certainly," said Franklin. "Then," said he, "you can have little +objection to enter into an engagement to assure that point." "None at all," +replied Franklin. Paris was then called in, and, after some discussion, a +paper, such as Lord Mansfield suggested, was drawn up and signed by +Franklin and Mr. Charles, who was the agent of Pennsylvania for ordinary +purposes, and the law was given the royal assent with the further +engagement, upon the part of Franklin and Mr. Charles, that it should be +amended in certain respects by subsequent legislation. This legislation, +however, the Assembly afterwards declined to enact when a committee, +appointed by it, upon which it was careful to place several close friends +of the Proprietaries, brought in an unanimous report stating that the +yearly tax levied before the order of the Council reached Pennsylvania had +been imposed with perfect fairness as between the Proprietaries and the +other tax-payers. + +In the most important respect, therefore, Franklin's mission to England had +resulted in success. The principle was established by the Crown that the +estate of the Proprietaries was subject to taxation equally with that of +the humblest citizen of Pennsylvania; and the credit of the paper money, +then scattered throughout the province, was saved. The Assembly rewarded +its servant, when he returned to Pennsylvania, with its formal thanks and +the sum of three thousand pounds. He responded in the happy terms which he +always had at his command on occasions of this sort. "He made answer," says +the official report, "that he was thankful to the House, for the very +handsome and generous Allowance they had been pleased to make him for his +Services; but that the Approbation of this House was, in his Estimation, +far above every other kind of Recompense." + +The Proprietaries punished their servant, Governor Denny, by removing him +and threatening him with suit for the breach of his bond, but it is a +pleasure to be told in the _Autobiography_ that his position was such that +he could despise their threats. + +While the duel was going on between the Proprietaries and the Assembly, +Franklin had some significant things at times to say about it in his +familiar letters. As far as we can see, his political course, during this +period, was entirely candid and manly. He was on agreeable personal terms +with all the colonial governors, he seems to have cherished an honest +desire to be helpful to the Proprietaries, so far as their own illiberality +and folly would allow him to be, and it is very plain that he was not +without the feeling that the demands of the Popular Party itself were +occasionally immoderate. He was quite willing for the sake of peace to +concede anything except the essential points of the controversy, but when +it came to these he was immovable as men of his type usually are when they +realize that a claim upon them is too unjust or exorbitant even for their +pacific temper. + + I am much oblig'd to you for the favourable Light you + put me in, to our Proprietor, as mention'd in yours of + July 30 [he wrote to Peter Collinson in 1754], I know + not why he should imagine me not his Friend, since I + cannot recollect any one Act of mine that could + denominate me otherwise. On the contrary if to concur + with him, so far as my little Influence reach'd in all + his generous and benevolent Designs and Desires of + making his Province and People flourishing and happy be + any Mark of my Respect and Dutyful Regard to him, there + are many who would be ready to say I could not be + suppos'd deficient in such Respect. The Truth is I have + sought his _Interest_ more than his _Favour_; others + perhaps have sought both, and obtain'd at least the + latter. But in my Opinion great Men are not always best + serv'd by such as show on all Occasions a blind + Attachment to them: An Appearance of Impartiality in + general gives a Man sometimes much more Weight when he + would serve in particular instances. + +To the friend to whom these words were written Franklin was disposed to +unbosom himself with unusual freedom, and, in the succeeding year, in +another letter to Collinson, he used words which showed plainly enough that +he thought that the Assembly too was at times inclined to indulge in more +hair-splitting and testiness than was consistent with the public welfare. + + You will see [he said] more of the same Trifling in + these Votes in both sides. I am heartily sick of our + present Situation; I like neither the Governor's + Conduct, nor the Assembly's; and having some Share in + the Confidence of both, I have endeavour'd to reconcile + 'em but in vain, and between 'em they make me very + uneasy. I was chosen last Year in my Absence and was + not at the Winter Sitting when the House sent home that + Address to the King, which I am afraid was both + ill-judg'd and ill-tim'd. If my being able now and then + to influence a good Measure did not keep up my Spirits + I should be ready to swear never to serve again as an + Assembly Man, since both Sides expect more from me than + they ought, and blame me sometimes for not doing what I + am not able to do, as well as for not preventing what + was not in my Power to prevent. The Assembly ride + restive; and the Governor tho' he spurs with both + heels, at the same time reins in with both hands, so + that the Publick Business can never move forward, and + he remains like St. George on the Sign, Always a + Horseback and never going on. Did you never hear this + old Catch? + + _Their was a mad Man--He had a mad Wife, + And three mad Sons beside; + And they all got upon a mad Horse + And madly they did ride._ + + Tis a Compendium of our Proceedings and may save you + the Trouble of reading them. + +In a still later letter to the same correspondent, Franklin asserted that +there was no reason for excluding Quakers from the House, since, though +unwilling to fight themselves, they had been brought to unite in voting the +sums necessary to enable the Province to defend itself. Then, after +referring to the defamation, that was being heaped upon him by the +Proprietary Party, in the place of the court paid to him when he had +exerted himself to secure aids from the House for Braddock and Shirley, he +said, "Let me know if you learn that any of their Slanders reach England. I +abhor these Altercations and if I did not love the Country and the People +would remove immediately into a more quiet Government, Connecticut, where I +am also happy enough to have many Friends." + +However, there was too much fuel for the fire to die down. The claim of the +Proprietaries to exemption from taxation was only the most aggravated +result of their efforts, by their instructions to their Governors, to +shape the legislation of the Province in accordance with their own personal +aims and pecuniary interests instead of in the spirit of the royal charter, +which gave to William Penn, and his heirs, and his, or their, deputies or +lieutenants, free, full and absolute power, for the good and happy +government of Pennsylvania, to make and enact any laws, according to their +best discretion, by and with the advice, assent and approbation of the +freemen of the said country, or of their delegates or deputies. In the +report of the Committee of Aggrievances of the Assembly, drawn by Franklin, +the case of the freemen of the Province against the Penns, which led to +Franklin's first mission to England, is clearly stated. They are arraigned +not only for seeking to exempt the bulk of their estate from the common +burden of taxation, but also, apart from this, for stripping, by their +instructions, their governors, and thereby the People themselves, of all +real discretion in fixing by legislation the measure and manner in which, +and the time at which, aids and supplies should be furnished for the +defence of the Province. They had even, the report charged, prohibited +their governors, by their instructions, from assenting to laws disposing of +interest arising from the loan of bills of credit or money raised by excise +taxes--forms of revenue to which the Proprietary estate did not contribute +at all--unless the laws contained a clause giving their governors the right +to negative a particular application of the sums. Another grievance was the +issuance by the governor of commissions to provincial judges, to be held +during the will and pleasure of the governors instead of during good +behavior, as covenanted by William Penn--a practice which gave the +Proprietaries control of the judicial as well as the executive Branch of +the provincial government. + +For a time, after Franklin returned to Pennsylvania in 1762, there was +something like peace between the Proprietaries and the people. When a +nephew of Thomas Penn was appointed governor, the Assembly accepted him as +a family pledge of restored good feeling. + + The Assembly [Franklin wrote to Dr. Fothergill] + received a Governor of the Proprietary family with open + arms, addressed him with sincere expressions of + kindness and respect, opened their purses to them, and + presented him with six hundred pounds; made a Riot Act + and prepared a Militia Bill immediately, at his + instance, granted supplies, and did everything that he + requested, and promised themselves great happiness + under his administration. + +And no governor was ever so dependent upon the good will of the Assembly. +It was during his administration that the Scotch-Irish inhabitants of the +frontier, inflamed by Indian outrages, imbrued their hands in the blood of +the Conestoga Indians, and, so far from being intimidated by the public +proclamations issued by the Governor for their arrest and punishment, +marched to the very threshold of Philadelphia itself with the purpose of +destroying the Moravian Indians huddled there in terror of their lives. The +whole Province outside of the City of Philadelphia was given over to +lawlessness and disorder. In the contagious excitement of the hour, a +considerable portion of its population even believed that the Quakers had +gained the friendship of the Indians by presents, supplied them secretly +with arms and ammunition, and engaged them to fall upon and kill the whites +on the Pennsylvania frontier. Under these circumstances, the Governor +simply did what Governor Morris and Governor Denny had been compelled to do +before him, namely, call in the aid of the man who could in a letter to +Peter Collinson truthfully sum up all that there was in the military +demonstration which angered Thomas Penn so deeply with the simple +utterance, "The People happen to love me." The whole story was told by +Franklin to Dr. Fothergill in the letter from which we have just quoted. + + More wonders! You know that I don't love the + Proprietary and that he does not love me. Our totally + different tempers forbid it. You might therefore expect + that the late new appointments of one of his family + would find me ready for opposition. And yet when his + nephew arrived, our Governor, I considered government + as government, and paid him all respect, gave him on + all occasions my best advice, promoted in the Assembly + a ready compliance with everything he proposed or + recommended, and when those daring rioters, encouraged + by general approbation of the populace, treated his + proclamation with contempt, I drew my pen in the cause; + wrote a pamphlet (that I have sent you) to render the + rioters unpopular; promoted an association to support + the authority of the Government and defend the Governor + by taking arms, signed it first myself, and was + followed by several hundreds, who took arms + accordingly. The Governor offered me the command of + them, but I chose to carry a musket and strengthen his + authority by setting an example of obedience to his + order. And would you think it, this proprietary + Governor did me the honour, in an alarm, to run to my + house at midnight, with his counsellors at his heels, + for advice, and made it his head-quarters for some + time. And within four and twenty hours, your old friend + was a common soldier, a counsellor, a kind of dictator, + an ambassador to the country mob, and on his returning + home, nobody again. All this has happened in a few + weeks. + +With the retirement of the backwoodsmen from Philadelphia to their homes, +sprang up one of the angriest factional contests that Pennsylvania had ever +known. Every malignant passion, political or sectarian, that lurked in the +Province was excited into the highest degree of morbid life. The +Presbyterians, the Churchmen, even some of the Quakers, acclaimed the +Paxton Boys as instruments of a just vengeance, and they constituted a +political force, which the Governor was swift to utilize for the purpose of +strengthening his party. He dropped all efforts to apprehend the murderers +of the Conestoga Indians, granted a private audience to the insurgents, +and accused the Assembly of disloyalty, and of encroaching upon the +prerogatives of the Crown, only because it had been presumptuous enough to +make an appointment to a petty office in a bill tendered to him for his +assent. It was during his administration, too, that the claim was made +that, even if the Proprietary estate had been subjected to taxation by the +Lords in Council, under the terms of one of the amendments, proposed by +them, "_the best and most valuable_," of the Proprietary lands "should be +tax'd no higher than the _worst and least valuable_ of the People's." + +When the conflict was reopened, the Assembly boldly brought it to an issue. +One of its committees, with Franklin at its head, reported a series of +resolutions censuring the proprietaries, condemning their rule as too weak +to maintain its authority and repress disorder, and petitioning the King to +take over the Government of the Province, after such compensation to the +Proprietaries as was just. The Assembly then adjourned to sound the temper +of their constituents, and their adjournment was the signal for a pamphlet +war attended by such a hail of paper pellets as rarely marked any contest +so early in the history of the American Colonies. Among the best of them +was the pamphlet written by Franklin, and entitled _Cool Thoughts on the +Present Situation of our Public Affairs_, which has already been mentioned, +and which denounced in no uncertain terms the "insolent Tribunitial VETO," +with which the Proprietaries were in the habit of declaring that nothing +should be done, unless their private interests in certain particulars were +served. + +On May 14, 1764, the Assembly met again, and was soon deeply engaged in a +debate as to whether an address should be sent to the King, praying the +abolition of the Proprietary Government. Long did the debate last; Joseph +Galloway making the principal argument in support of the proposition, and +John Dickinson the principal one against it. When the vote was taken, the +affirmative prevailed, but, as Isaac Norris, who had been a member of the +body for thirty years, and its speaker for fifteen, was about to be bidden +by it to sign the address, he stated that, since he did not approve it, and +yet would have to sign it as speaker, he hoped that he might have time to +draft his objections to it. A short recess ensued, and when the members +convened again, Norris sent word that he was too sick to be present, and +requested that another person should be chosen as speaker. The choice of +the body then fell upon Franklin, who immediately signed the paper. + +The next sitting of the Assembly was not to be held until the succeeding +October, and before that time the annual election for members of the +Assembly was to take place. For the purpose of influencing public opinion, +Dickinson, upon its adjournment, published his speech with a long preface +by Dr. William Smith. Galloway followed suit by publishing his speech with +a long preface by Franklin. This preface is one of Franklin's masterpieces, +marked it is true by some quaint conceits and occasional relaxations of +energy, but full of power and withering sarcasm. Preceded by such a lengthy +and brilliant preface, Galloway must have felt that his speech had little +more than the secondary value of an appendix. With the consummate capacity +for pellucid statement, which was one of Franklin's most remarkable gifts, +it narrated the manner in which the practice of buying legislation from the +Proprietaries had been pursued. With equal force and ingenuity, it +demonstrated that five out of the six amendments, proposed by the Lords in +Council to the Act, approved by Governor Denny, did not justify the charge +that the circumstances, in which they originated, involved any real +injustice to the Proprietaries, and that the sixth, which forbade the +tender to the Proprietaries of paper bills of fluctuating value, in payment +of debts payable to them, under the terms of special contracts, in coin, +if a measure of justice to them, would be also a measure of justice to +other creditors in the same situation, who were not mentioned in the +amendment. + +Referring to the universal practice in America of making such bills a legal +tender and the fact that the bills in question would have been a legal +tender as respects the members of the Assembly and their constituents as +well as the Proprietaries, Franklin's preface glows like an incandescent +furnace in these words: + + But if he (the reader) can not on these Considerations, + quite excuse the Assembly, what will he think of those + _Honourable_ Proprietaries, who when Paper Money was + issued in their Colony for the Common Defence of their + vast Estates, with those of the People, and who must + therefore reap, at least, equal Advantages from those + Bills with the People, could nevertheless _wish_ to be + exempted from their Share of the unavoidable + Disadvantages. Is there upon Earth a Man besides, with + any Conception of what is honest, with any Notion of + Honor, with the least Tincture in his Veins of the + Gentleman, but would have blush'd at the Thought; but + would have rejected with Disdain such undue Preference, + if it had been offered him? Much less would he have + struggled for it, mov'd Heaven and Earth to obtain it, + resolv'd to ruin Thousands of his Tenants by a Repeal + of the Act, rather than miss of it, and enforce it + afterwards by an audaciously wicked Instruction, + forbidding Aids to his King, and exposing the Province + to Destruction, unless it was complied with. And + yet,--these are _Honourable Men_.... Those who study + Law and Justice, as a Science [he added in an indignant + note] have established it a Maxim in Equity, "Qui + sentit commodum, sentire debet et onus." And so + consistent is this with the _common_ Sense of Mankind, + that even our lowest untaught Coblers and Porters feel + the Force of it in their own Maxim, (which _they_ are + _honest enough_ never to dispute) "Touch Pot, touch + Penny." + +Other passages in the Preface were equally scorching. Replying to the +charge of the Proprietaries that the Quaker Assembly, out of mere malice, +because they had conscientiously quitted the Society of Friends for the +Church, were wickedly determined to ruin them by throwing the entire burden +of taxation on them, Franklin had this to say: + + How foreign these Charges were from the Truth, need not + be told to any Man in _Pennsylvania_. And as the + Proprietors knew, that the Hundred Thousand Pounds of + paper money, struck for the defence of their enormous + Estates, with others, was actually issued, spread thro' + the Country, and in the Hands of Thousands of poor + People, who had given their Labor for it, how base, + cruel, and inhuman it was, to endeavour by a Repeal of + the Act, to strike the Money dead in those Hands at one + Blow, and reduce it all to Waste Paper, to the utter + Confusion of all Trade and Dealings, and the Ruin of + Multitudes, merely to avoid paying their own just + Tax!--Words may be wanting to express, but Minds will + easily conceive, and never without Abhorrence! + +But fierce as these attacks were, they were mild in comparison with the +shower of stones hurled by Franklin at the Proprietaries in the Preface in +one of those lapidary inscriptions which were so common in that age. The +prefacer of Dickinson's Speech had inserted in his introduction a lapidary +memorial of William Penn made up of tessellated bits of eulogy, extracted +from the various addresses of the Assembly itself. This gave Franklin a +fine opportunity to retort in a similar mosaic of phrases and to contrast +the meanness of the sons with what the Assembly had said of the father. + + That these Encomiums on the Father [he said] tho' + sincere, have occurr'd so frequently, was owing, + however, to two Causes; first, a vain Hope the + Assemblies entertain'd, that the Father's Example, and + the Honors done his Character, might influence the + Conduct of the Sons; secondly, for that in attempting + to compliment the Sons on their own Merits, there was + always found an extreme Scarcity of Matter. Hence _the + Father, the honored and honorable Father_, was so + often repeated, that the Sons themselves grew sick of + it; and have been heard to say to each other with + Disgust, when told that A, B, and C. were come to wait + upon them with Addresses on some public Occasion, + "_Then I suppose we shall hear more about our Father._" + So that, let me tell the Prefacer, who perhaps was + unacquainted with this Anecdote, that if he hop'd to + curry more Favor with the Family, by the Inscription he + has fram'd for that great Man's Monument, he may find + himself mistaken; for,--there is too much in it of _our + Father_. + + If therefore, he would erect a Monument to the Sons, + the Votes of Assembly, which are of such Credit with + him, will furnish him with ample Materials for his + Inscription. + + To save him Trouble, I will essay a Sketch for him, in + the Lapidary Style, tho' mostly in the Expressions, and + everywhere in the Sense and Spirit of the Assembly's + Resolves and Messages. + + Be this a Memorial + Of T-- and R-- P--, + P-- of P,-- + Who, with Estates immense, + Almost beyond Computation, + When their own Province, + And the whole _British_ Empire + Were engag'd in a bloody and most expensive War, + Begun for the Defence of those Estates, + Could yet meanly desire + To have those very Estates + Totally or Partially + Exempted from Taxation, + While their Fellow-Subjects all around them, Groan'd + Under the Universal Burthen. + To gain this Point, + They refus'd the necessary Laws + For the Defence of their People, + And suffer'd their Colony to welter in its Blood, + Rather than abate in the least + Of these their dishonest Pretensions. + The Privileges granted by their Father + Wisely and benevolently + To encourage the first Settlers of the Province, + They, + Foolishly and cruelly, + Taking Advantage of public Distress, + Have extorted from the Posterity of those Settlers; + And are daily endeavouring to reduce them + To the most abject Slavery: + Tho' to the Virtue and Industry of those People + In improving their Country, + They owe all that they possess and enjoy. + A striking Instance + Of human Depravity and Ingratitude; + And an irrefragable Proof, + That Wisdom and Goodness + Do not descend with an Inheritance; + But that ineffable Meanness + May be connected with unbounded Fortune. + +It may well be doubted whether any one had ever been subjected to such +overwhelming lapidation as this since the time of the early Christian +martyrs. + +There are many other deadly thrusts in the Preface, and nowhere else are +the issues between the Proprietaries and the People so clearly presented, +but the very completeness of the paper renders it too long for further +quotation. + +Franklin, however, was by no means allowed to walk up and down the field, +vainly challenging a champion to come out from the opposing host and +contend with him. At his towering front the missiles of the Proprietary +Party were mainly directed. Beneath one caricature of him were these lines: + + "Fight dog, fight bear! You're all my friends: + By you I shall attain my ends, + For I can never be content + Till I have got the government. + But if from this attempt I fall, + Then let the Devil take you all!" + +Another writer strove in his lapidary zeal to fairly bury Franklin beneath +a whole cairn of opprobrious accusations, consuming nine pages of printed +matter in the effort to visit his political tergiversation, his greed for +power, his immorality and other sins, with their proper deserts, and ending +with this highly rhetorical apostrophe: + + "Reader, behold this striking Instance of + Human Depravity and Ingratitude; + An irrefragable Proof + That neither the Capital services of _Friends_ + Nor the attracting Favours of the Fair, + Can fix the Sincerity of a Man, + _Devoid of Principles_ and + Ineffably mean: + Whose ambition is + POWER, + And whose intention is + TYRANNY." + +The illegitimacy of William Franklin, of course, was freely used during the +conflict as a means of paining and discrediting Franklin. In a pamphlet +entitled, _What is sauce for a Goose is also Sauce for a Gander_, the +writer asserted that the mother of William was a woman named Barbara, who +worked in Franklin's house as a servant for ten pounds a year, that she +remained in this position until her death and that Franklin then stole her +to the grave in silence without pall, tomb or monument. A more refined +spirit, which could not altogether free itself from the undertow of its +admiration for such an extraordinary man, penned these lively lines +entitled, "Inscription on a Curious Stove in the Form of An Urn, Contrived +in such a Manner As To Make The Flame Descend Instead of Rising from the +Fire, Invented by Dr. Franklin." + + "Like a Newton sublimely he soared + To a summit before unattained, + New regions of science explored + And the palm of philosophy gained. + + "With a spark which he caught from the skies + He displayed an unparalleled wonder, + And we saw with delight and surprise + That his rod could secure us from thunder. + + "Oh! had he been wise to pursue + The track for his talents designed, + What a tribute of praise had been due + To the teacher and friend of mankind. + + "But to covet political fame + Was in him a degrading ambition, + The spark that from Lucifer came + And kindled the blaze of sedition. + + "Let candor then write on his urn, + Here lies the renowned inventor + Whose fame to the skies ought to burn + But inverted descends to the centre." + +The election began at nine o'clock in the morning on October 1, 1764. +Franklin and Galloway headed the "Old Ticket," and Willing and Bryan the +"New." The latter ticket was supported by the Dutch Calvinists, the +Presbyterians and many of the Dutch Lutherans and Episcopalians; the former +by the Quakers and Moravians and some of the McClenaghanites. So great was +the concourse of voters that, until midnight, it took fifteen minutes for +one of them to work his way from the end of the line of eager electors to +the polling place. Excitement was at white heat, and, while the election +was pending, hands were busy scattering squibs and campaign appeals in +English and German among the crowd. Towards three the next morning, the +new-ticket partisans moved that the polls be closed, but the motion was +opposed by their old-ticket foes, because they wished to bring out a +reserve of aged or lame retainers who could not stand long upon their feet. +These messengers were dispatched to bring in such retainers from their +homes in chairs and litters, and, when the new-ticket men saw the success, +with which the old-ticket men were marshalling their recruits, they, too, +began to scour the vicinage for votes, and so successful were the two +parties in mobilizing their reserves that the polls did not close until +three o'clock in the afternoon of the second day. Not until the third day +were the some 3900 real and fraudulent votes cast counted; and, when the +count was over, it was found that Franklin and Galloway had been defeated. +"Franklin," said an eye-witness of the election, "died like a philosopher. +But Mr. Galloway agonized in death like a mortal deist, who has no hopes of +a future life." + +As for Franklin, his enemies had simply kicked him upstairs. A majority of +the persons returned as elected belonged to his faction, and, despite the +indignant eloquence of Dickinson, who declared him to be the most bitterly +disliked man in Pennsylvania, the Assembly, by a vote of nineteen to +eleven, selected him as the agent of the Province to go over to England, +and assist Richard Jackson, its standing agent, in "representing, +soliciting and transacting the affairs" of the Province for the ensuing +year. + +The minority protested; and moved that its protest be spread upon the +minutes, and, when this motion was denied, it published its remonstrance in +the newspapers. This act provoked a pamphlet in reply from Franklin +entitled _Remarks on a Late Protest_. Though shorter it is as good, as far +as it goes, as the preface to Galloway's speech. He tosses the protestants +and their reasons for believing him unfit for the agency on his horns with +astonishing ease and strength, calls attention to the trifling majority of +some twenty-five votes by which he was returned defeated, and chills the +habit that we often indulge of lauding the political integrity and decorum +of our American ancestors at our own expense by inveighing against the +"many Perjuries procured among the wretched Rabble brought to swear +themselves intitled to a Vote" and roundly saying to the protestants to +their faces, "Your Artifices did not prevail everywhere; nor your double +Tickets, and Whole Boxes of Forged Votes. A great Majority of the +new-chosen Assembly were of the old Members, and remain uncorrupted." + +Apart from the reference to the illegitimacy of William Franklin, Franklin +had passed through the heated contest with the Proprietaries without the +slightest odor of fire upon his garments. With his hatred of contention, it +is natural enough that he should have written to Collinson, when the pot of +contention was boiling so fiercely in Pennsylvania in 1764: "The general +Wish seems to be a King's Government. If that is not to be obtain'd, many +talk of quitting the Province, and among them your old Friend, who is tired +of these Contentions & longs for philosophic Ease and Leisure." But he did +not overstate the case when he wrote to Samuel Rhoads in the succeeding +year from London, "The Malice of our Adversaries I am well acquainted with, +but hitherto it has been Harmless; all their Arrows shot against us, have +been like those that Rabelais speaks of which were headed with Butter +harden'd in the Sun." + +Franklin was a doughty antagonist when at bay, but he had few obdurate +resentments, and was quick to see the redeeming virtues of even those who +had wronged him. He assisted in the circulation of John Dickinson's famous +Farmer's Letters, and curiously enough when Dickinson was the President of +the State of Pennsylvania at the close of the Revolution, and the 130,000 +pounds which that State had agreed to pay for the vacant lots and +unappropriated wilderness lands of the Penns was claimed to be an +inadequate consideration by some of them, he gave to John Penn, the son of +Thomas Penn, a letter of recommendation to "the Civilities and Friendship" +of Dickinson. + + I would beg leave to mention it to your Excellency's + Consideration [he said], whether it would not be + reputable for the Province, in the cooler Season of + Peace to reconsider that Act, and if the Allowance made + to the Family should be found inadequate, to regulate + it according to Equity, since it becomes a Virgin State + to be particularly careful of its Reputation, and to + guard itself not only against committing Injustice, but + against even the suspicion of it. + +But nothing better proves what a selfish cur Thomas Penn was than the fact +that, more than twenty years after the election, of which we have been +speaking, so magnanimous a man as Franklin could express this sober +estimate of his conduct and character in a letter to Jan Ingenhousz: + + In my own Judgment, when I consider that for near 80 + Years, viz., from the Year 1700, William Penn and his + Sons receiv'd the Quit-rents which were originally + granted for the Support of Government, and yet refused + to support the Government, obliging the People to make + a fresh Provision for its Support all that Time, which + cost them vast Sums, as the most necessary Laws were + not to be obtain'd but at the Price of making such + Provision; when I consider the Meanness and cruel + Avarice of the late Proprietor, in refusing for several + Years of War, to consent to any Defence of the + Frontiers ravaged all the while by the Enemy, unless + his Estate should be exempted from paying any Part of + the Expence, not to mention other Atrocities too long + for this letter, I can not but think the Family well + off, and that it will be prudent in them to take the + Money and be quiet. William Penn, the First Proprietor, + Father of Thomas, the Husband of the present Dowager, + was a wise and good Man, and as honest to the People as + the extream Distress of his Circumstances would permit + him to be, but the said Thomas was a miserable Churl, + always intent upon Griping and Saving; and whatever + Good the Father may have done for the Province was + amply undone by the Mischief received from the Son, who + never did anything that had the Appearance of + Generosity or Public Spirit but what was extorted from + him by Solicitation and the Shame of Backwardness in + Benefits evidently incumbent on him to promote, and + which was done at last in the most ungracious manner + possible. The Lady's Complaints of not duly receiving + her Revenues from America are habitual; they were the + same during all the Time of my long Residence in + London, being then made by her Husband as Excuses for + the Meanness of his Housekeeping and his Deficiency in + Hospitality, tho' I knew at the same time that he was + then in full Receipt of vast Sums annually by the Sale + of Lands, Interest of Money, and Quit-rents. But + probably he might conceal this from his Lady to induce + greater Economy as it is known that he ordered no more + of his Income home than was absolutely necessary for + his Subsistence, but plac'd it at Interest in + Pennsylvania & the Jerseys, where he could have 6 and 7 + per Cent, while Money bore no more than 5 per cent in + England. I us'd often to hear of those Complaints, and + laugh at them, perceiving clearly their Motive. They + serv'd him on other as well as on domestic Occasions. + You remember our Rector of St. Martin's Parish, Dr. + Saunders. He once went about, during a long and severe + Frost, soliciting charitable Contributions to purchase + Coals for poor Families. He came among others to me, + and I gave him something. It was but little, very + little, and yet it occasion'd him to remark, "You are + more bountiful on this Occasion than your wealthy + Proprietary, Mr. Penn, but he tells me he is distress'd + by not receiving his Incomes from America." The Incomes + of the family there must still be very great, for they + have a Number of Manors consisting of the best Lands, + which are preserved to them, and vast Sums at Interest + well secur'd by Mortgages; so that if the Dowager does + not receive her Proportion, there must be some Fault in + her Agents. You will perceive by the length of this + Article that I have been a little _échauffé_ by her + making the Complaints you mention to the Princess + Dowager of Lichtenstein at Vienna. The Lady herself is + good & amiable, and I should be glad to serve her in + anything just and reasonable; but I do not at present + see that I can do more than I have done. + +And Thomas Penn, too, like St. Sebastian, will never be drawn without +_that_ arrow in _his_ side. + +When Franklin was appointed agent, the provincial treasury was empty, but +so deeply aroused was public sentiment, in favor of the substitution of a +royal for the proprietary government, that the merchants of Philadelphia in +a few hours subscribed a sum of eleven hundred pounds, to defray his +expenses. Of this amount, however, he refused to accept but five hundred +pounds, and, after a trying passage of thirty days, he found himself again +at No. 7 Craven Street. + +So far as the immediate object of his mission was concerned, it proved a +failure. Before he left Pennsylvania, George Grenville, the Prime Minister +of England, had called the agents of the American Colonies, resident at +London, together and informed them that a debt of seventy-three millions +sterling had been imposed upon England by the recent war, and that he +proposed to ask Parliament to place a part of it upon the American +Colonies. In the stream of events, which began with this proposal, the +proprietary government in Pennsylvania and the royal governments in other +American Colonies were alike destined to be swept away. + +After the arrival of Franklin in England, the local struggle in +Pennsylvania was of too secondary importance to command serious attention; +and, beyond a few meagre allusions to it, there is no mention made of it in +his letters. The temper of the English Ministry was not friendly to such a +revolutionary change as the abolition of the proprietary government, and +Franklin, after he had been in England a few years, had too many matters of +continental concern to look after to have any time left for a single phase +of the general conflict between the Colonies and the mother country. + +Before passing to his share in this conflict, a word should be said about +the Albany Congress, in which he was the guiding spirit. In 1754, when +another war between England and France was feared, a Congress of +Commissioners from the several Colonies was ordered by the Lords of Trade +to be held at Albany. The object of the call was to bring about a +conference between the Colonies and the Chiefs of the Six Nations as to the +best means of defending their respective territories from invasion by the +French. When the order reached Pennsylvania, Governor Hamilton communicated +it to the Assembly, and requested that body to provide proper presents for +the Indians, who were to assemble at Albany; and he named Franklin and +Isaac Norris, the Speaker of the Assembly, as the Commissioners from +Pennsylvania, to act in conjunction with Thomas Penn and Richard Peters, +the Secretary of the Proprietary Government. The presents were provided, +and the nominations confirmed by the Assembly, and Franklin and his +colleagues arrived at Albany in the month of June, 1754. + +He brought his usual zeal to the movement. Before he left Philadelphia, +with a view to allaying the jealousies, which existed between the different +colonies, he published an article in his _Gazette_ pointing out the +importance of unanimity, which was accompanied by a woodcut representing a +snake severed into as many sections as there were colonies. Each section +bore the first letter of the name of a colony, and beneath the whole, in +capital letters, were the words, "Join or die." On his way to Albany, he +drafted a plan of union, looking to the permanent defence of the colonies, +which closely resembled a similar plan of union, put forward thirty-two +years before by Daniel Coxe in a tract entitled _A Description of the +English Province of Carolina_. The Congress was attended by Commissioners +from all the Colonies except New Jersey, Virginia, the Carolinas and +Georgia. One of its members was Thomas Hutchinson, of Massachusetts, who +was to bring down on Franklin's head the most trying crisis in his career. +James De Lancey, the Lieutenant-Governor of New York, was chosen to be its +presiding officer. Mingled with the Commissioners and the inhabitants of +Albany, as they walked its streets, were the representatives of the +Iroquois, whose tribes had cherished an unappeasable hatred for the French +ever since the fatal day when Frontenac had thrown in his fortunes with +those of their traditional enemies, the Hurons. Much time had to be +expended by the Commissioners in distributing among them the presents that +they had brought for them, and in conducting with ceremonious and tedious +formality the long powwows in which the Indian heart, if there was such a +thing, so dearly delighted. When the assembly entered upon its +deliberations, a committee of seven was appointed by it to consider the +objects of the Congress, and it was composed of one commissioner from each +colony; Franklin being the member from Pennsylvania, and Thomas Hutchinson +the member from Massachusetts. After the Commissioners gathered at Albany, +it was found that plans of union had been framed by other members of the +Congress besides Franklin. All the plans were compared and considered by +the committee, and Franklin's was adopted, amended and reported to the +Congress, and was by it, after a long debate, approved, and recommended to +the favorable consideration of Parliament and the King whose assent, it was +conceded, was essential to its efficacy. + +It was a simple but comprehensive scheme of government. The several +colonies were to remain independent except so far as they surrendered their +autonomy for purposes of mutual defence; there were to be a +President-General, appointed and paid by the King, who was to be the +executive arm of the Union, and a Grand Council of forty-eight members, +elected by the different Colonial Assemblies, which was to be its +legislative organ. The first meeting of the Council was to be at +Philadelphia[16]; it was to meet once a year or oftener, if there was need, +at such times and places as it should fix on adjournment, or as should be +fixed, in case of an emergency, by the call of the President-General, who +was authorized to issue such a call, with the consent of seven members of +the Council; the tenure of members of the Council was to be for three +years, and, on the death or resignation of a member, the vacancy was to be +filled by the Assembly of his colony at its next sitting; after the +election of the first members of the Council, the representation of the +colonies in it was to be in proportion to their respective contributions to +the Treasury of the Union, but no colony was to be represented by more than +seven nor less than two members; the Council was to have the power to +choose its Speaker, and was to be neither dissolved, prorogued nor +continued in session longer than six weeks at one time without its consent, +or the special command of the Crown; its members were to be allowed for +their services ten shillings sterling a day, whether in session or +journeying to or from the place of meeting; twenty-five members were to +constitute a quorum, provided that among this number was at least one +member from a majority of the Colonies; the assent of the President General +was to be essential to the validity of all acts of the Council, and it was +to be his duty to see that they were carried into execution, and the +President-General and Council were to negotiate all treaties with the +Indians, declare war and make peace with them, regulate all trade with +them, purchase for the Crown from them all lands sold by them, and not +within the limits of the old Colonies; and make and govern new settlements +on such lands until erected into formal colonies. They were also to enlist +and pay soldiers, build forts and equip vessels for the defence of the +Colonies, but were to have no power to impress men in any colony without +the consent of its assembly; all military and naval officers of the Union +were to be named by the President-General with the approval of the Council, +and all civil officers of the Union were to be named by the Council with +the approval of the President-General; in case of vacancies, resulting from +death or removal, in any such offices, they were to be filled by the +Governors of the Provinces in which they occurred until appointments could +be made in the regular way; and the President-General and Council were also +to have the power to appoint a General Treasurer for the Union and a Local +Treasurer for the Union in each colony, when necessary. All funds were to +be disbursed on the joint order of the President-General and the Council, +except when sums had been previously appropriated for particular purposes, +and the President-General had been specially authorized to draw upon them; +the general accounts of the Union were to be each year communicated to the +several Colonial Assemblies; and, for the limited purposes of the Union, +the President-General and the Council were authorized to enact laws, and to +levy general duties, imposts and taxes; the laws so enacted to be +transmitted to the King in Council for his approbation, and, if not +disapproved within three years, to remain in force. A final feature of the +plan was the provision that each Colony might in a sudden emergency take +measures for its own defence, and call upon the President-General and +Council for reimbursement. + +The Albany plan of union was one of the direct lineal antecedents of the +Federal Constitution. In other words, it was one of the really significant +things in our earlier history that tended to foster the habit of union, +without which that constitution could never have been adopted. But, when +considered in the light of the jealousy with which the mother country then +regarded the Colonies, and with which the Colonies regarded each other, it +is not at all surprising that the plan recommended by it should have to +come to nothing. "Its fate was singular," says Franklin in the +_Autobiography_. "The assemblies did not adopt it, as they all thought +there was too much _prerogative_ in it, and in England it was judg'd to +have too much of the _democratic_." Even in Pennsylvania, though the +Governor laid it before the Assembly with a handsome tribute to "the great +clearness and strength of judgment," with which it had been drawn up, that +body, when Franklin was absent, condemned it without giving it any serious +consideration. In England it met with the disapproval of the Board of +Trade, and "another scheme," to recur to the _Autobiography_, "was form'd, +supposed to answer the same purpose better, whereby the governors of the +provinces, with some members of their respective councils, were to meet and +order the raising of troops, building of forts, etc., and to draw on the +treasury of Great Britain for the expense, which was afterwards to be +refunded by an act of Parliament laying a tax on America." + +The Albany plan was an eminently wise one, and Franklin was probably +justified in forming the favorable view of it which he expressed in these +words in the _Autobiography_: + + The different and contrary reasons of dislike to my + plan makes me suspect that it was really the true + medium; and I am still of opinion it would have been + happy for both sides the water if it had been adopted. + The colonies, so united, would have been sufficiently + strong to have defended themselves; there would then + have been no need of troops from England; of course, + the subsequent pretence for taxing America, and the + bloody contest it occasioned, would have been avoided. + But such mistakes are not new; history is full of the + errors of states and princes. + + "Look round the habitable world, how few + Know their own good, or, knowing it, pursue!" + + Those who govern, having much business on their hands, + do not generally like to take the trouble of + considering and carrying into execution new projects. + The best public measures are therefore seldom _adopted + from previous wisdom, but forc'd by the occasion_. + +In the autumn of 1754, Franklin made a journey to Boston. There he met +Shirley, and was apprised by him of the plan formed in England for the +defence of the Colonies. This intelligence elicited three notable letters +from him to Shirley in which he succinctly but luminously and vigorously +stated his objections to the plan. In the first letter, he deprecated in +brief but grave general terms a scheme of colonial administration, in which +the people of the Colonies were to be excluded from all share in the choice +of the Grand Council contemplated by the scheme, and were to be taxed by a +Parliament in which they were to have no representation. Where heavy +burdens are laid on the people, it had been found useful, he said, to make +such burdens as much as possible their own acts. The people bear them +better when they have, or think they have, some share in the direction; +and, when any public measures are generally grievous, or even distasteful +to the people, the wheels of government move more heavily. + +In the second letter, Franklin states what in his opinion the people of the +Colonies were likely to say of the proposed plan, namely, that they were as +loyal as any other subjects of the King; that there was no reason to doubt +their readiness to grant such sums as they could for the defence of the +Colonies; that they were likely to be better judges of their own military +necessities than the remote English Parliament; that the governors, who +came to the Colonies, often came merely to make their fortunes, and to +return to England, were not always men of the best abilities or integrity, +had little in common with the colonists, and might be inclined to lavish +military expenditures for the sake of the profit to be derived from such +expenditures by them for themselves and their friends and dependents; that +members of colonial councils being appointed by the Crown, on the +recommendation of colonial governors, and being often men of small estates, +and dependent on such governors for place, were too subject to influence; +that Parliament was likely to be misled by such governors and councils; and +yet their combined influence would probably shield them against popular +resentment; that it was deemed an unquestionable right of Englishmen not to +be taxed but by their own consent, given through their representatives, and +that the Colonies had no representation in Parliament; that to tax the +people of the Colonies without such representation, and to exclude them +altogether from the proposed plan was a reflection on their loyalty, or +their patriotism, or their intelligence, and that to tax them without their +consent, was, indeed, more like raising contributions in an enemy's country +than the taxation of Englishmen. Such were some of the objections stated in +this letter to the imposition of taxes on the Colonies by the British +Parliament. There were others of a kindred nature, and still others, based +upon the claim that the Colonies were already paying heavy secondary taxes +to England. Taxes, paid by landholders and artificers in England, Franklin +declared, entered into the prices paid in America for their products, and +were therefore really taxes paid by America to Britain. The difference +between the prices, paid by America for these products, and the cheaper +prices, at which they could be bought in other countries, if America were +allowed to trade with them, was also but a tax paid by America to Britain +and, where the price was paid for goods which America could manufacture +herself, if allowed by Great Britain to do so, the whole of it was but such +a tax. Such a tax, too, was the difference between the price that America +received for its own products in Britain, after the payment of duties, and +the price that it could obtain in other countries, if allowed to trade with +them. In fine, as America was not permitted to regulate its trade, and +restrain the importation and consumption of British superfluities, its +whole wealth ultimately found its way to Great Britain, and, if the +inhabitants of Great Britain were enriched in consequence, and rendered +better able to pay their taxes, that was nearly the same thing as if +America itself was taxed. Of these kinds of indirect taxes America did not +complain, but to pay direct taxes, without being consulted as to whether +they should be laid, or as to how they should be applied, could not but +seem harsh to Englishmen, who could not conceive that by hazarding their +lives and fortunes in subduing and settling new countries, and in extending +the dominion and increasing the commerce of the mother country, they had +forfeited the native rights of Britons; which they thought that, on these +accounts, might well be given to them, even if they had been before in a +state of slavery. Another objection to the scheme, the letter asserted, was +the likelihood that the Governors and Councillors, not being associated +with any representatives of the people, to unite with them in their +measures, and to render these measures palatable to the people, would +become distrusted and odious; and thus would embitter the relations +between governors and governed and bring about total confusion. The letter, +short as it is, sums up almost all the main points of the more copious +argument that was, in a few years, to be made with so much pathos as well +as power by the Colonies against the resolve of the British Ministry to tax +them without their consent. + +Franklin's third letter to Shirley is but the statement in embryo of the +sagacious and enlarged views of the policy of Great Britain, with respect +to the Colonies, which he subsequently expressed in so many impressive +forms. The letter is, first of all, interesting as showing that the subject +of promoting a closer union between Great Britain and her colonies by +allowing the latter to be represented in Parliament had already been +discussed by Shirley and Franklin in conversation. It is also an +indication, for all that was said later about the submissive loyalty of the +Colonies, that the sense of injustice and hardship worked by the repressive +effects of the existing British restrictions on American commerce and +manufactures was widely diffused in America. The proposal to allow America +representatives in Parliament would, Franklin thought, be very acceptable +to the Colonies, provided the presentation was a reasonable one in point of +numbers, and provided all the old acts of Parliament, limiting the trade, +or cramping the manufactures, of the Colonies, were, at the same time, +repealed and the cis-Atlantic subjects of Great Britain put on the same +footing of commercial and industrial freedom as its trans-Atlantic +subjects, until a Parliament, in which both were represented, should deem +it to be to the interest of the whole empire that some or all of the +obnoxious laws should be revived. Franklin also was too much of a +latter-day American not to believe that laws, which then seemed to the +colonists to be unjust to them, would be acquiesced in more cheerfully by +them, and be easier of execution, if approved by a Parliament in which they +were represented. The letter ended with a series of original reflections, +highly characteristic of the free play, which marked the mental operations +of the writer in dealing with any subject, encumbered by short-sighted +prejudices. Of what importance was it, he argued, whether manufacturers of +iron lived at Birmingham or Sheffield, or both, since they were still +within the bounds of Great Britain? Could the Goodwin Sands be laid dry by +banks, and land, equal to a large county thereby gained to England, and +presently filled with English inhabitants, would it be right to deprive +such inhabitants of the common privileges enjoyed by other Englishmen, the +right of vending their produce in the same ports, or of making their own +shoes, because a merchant or a shoemaker, living on the old land, might +fancy it more for his advantage to trade or make shoes for them? Would this +be right even if the land was gained at the expense of the State? And would +it seem less right if the charge and labor of gaining the additional +territory to Great Britain had been borne by the settlers themselves? + + Now I look on the colonies [Franklin continued] as so + many counties gained to Great Britain, and more + advantageous to it than if they had been gained out of + the seas around its coasts, and joined to its land: For + being in different climates, they afford greater + variety of produce, and being separated by the ocean, + they increase much more its shipping and seamen; and + since they are all included in the British Empire, + which has only extended itself by their means; and the + strength and wealth of the parts are the strength and + wealth of the whole; what imports it to the general + state, whether a merchant, a smith, or a hatter, grow + rich in Old or New England? + +To this question, of course, the nineteenth or twentieth century could only +have had one answer; but the eighteenth, blinded by economic delusions, had +many. + +In the opinion of Franklin, expressed in his letters to Peter Collinson, +until the Albany plan of union, or something like it, was adopted, no +American war would ever be carried on as it should be, and Indian affairs +would continue to be mismanaged. But he was fair-minded and clear-sighted +enough to see that, if some such plan was not adopted, the fault would lie +with the Colonies rather than with Great Britain. In one of his letters to +Peter Collinson, he declared that, in his opinion, it was not likely that +any of them would agree to the plan, or even propose any amendments to it. + + Every Body [he said] cries, a Union is absolutely + necessary; but when they come to the Manner and Form of + the Union, their weak Noddles are perfectly distracted. + So if ever there be an Union, it must be form'd at home + by the Ministry and Parliament. I doubt not but they + will make a good one, and I wish it may be done this + winter. + +The essential features of the Albany plan of union were all outlined by +Franklin three or four years before the Albany Congress met, in a letter to +James Parker, his New York partner. A union of the colonies, under existing +conditions, was, he thought, impracticable. If a governor became impressed +with the importance of such a union, and asked the other colonial governors +to recommend it to their assemblies, the request came to nothing, either +because the governors were often on ill terms with their assemblies, and +were seldom the men who exercised the most influence over them, or because +they threw cold water on the request for fear that the cost of such a union +might make the people of their colonies less able or willing to give to +them, or simply because they did not earnestly realize the necessity for +it. Besides, under existing conditions, there was no one to back such a +request or to answer objections to it. A better course would be to select +half a dozen men of good understanding and address, and send them around, +as ambassadors to the different colonies, to urge upon them the expediency +of the union. It would be strange, indeed, Franklin thought, if the six +Iroquois tribes of ignorant savages could be capable of forming a union +which had lasted for ages, and yet ten or a dozen English colonies be +incapable of forming a similar one. These views were elicited by a pamphlet +on the importance of gaining and preserving the friendship of the Indians, +which had been sent to Franklin by Parker, and they constitute a natural +introduction to a brief review of the relations sustained by one of the +most reasonable of the children of men to perhaps the most unreasonable of +all the children of men, the Indian of the American forest. + +With the Indians, their habits, characteristics, polity and trade Franklin +was very conversant. Repeatedly, during his lifetime, the frontiers of +Pennsylvania were harried by the tomahawk and scalping-knife. In a letter, +written a few months after Braddock's defeat to Richard Partridge, he +mentions, for instance, that the savages had just surprised and cut off +eight families near Shamokin, killing and scalping thirteen grown persons +and kidnapping twelve children. In another letter to Peter Collinson, +written the next year, he made this appalling summary of what, with the aid +of the French, the revenge of the Delawares for the imposition practised +upon them in the Walking Purchase was supposed to have cost the Province. +"Some Hundreds of Lives lost, many Farms destroy'd and near £100,000 spent, +yet," he added, "the Proprietor refuses to be taxed except for a trifling +Part of his Estate." During the incursions of this period, the Indian +war-parties pushed their outrages to a point only eighty miles from +Philadelphia. A diarist, Thomas Lloyd, who accompanied Franklin on his +expedition to Gnadenhutten, gives us this ghastly description of what they +found there: + + Here all round appears nothing but one continued scene + of horror and destruction. Where lately flourished a + happy and peaceful village, it is now all silent and + desolate; the houses burnt; the inhabitants butchered + in the most shocking manner; their mangled bodies, for + want of funerals, exposed to birds and beasts of prey; + and all kinds of mischief perpetrated that wanton + cruelty can invent. + +Not even a Rizpah left to brood over the scalpless forms, and to drive away +the buzzard and the wild things of the forest! In this scene, and the +pettier but similarly tragic scenes of death and havoc, furnished, from +time to time, over a wide range of frontier territory, by lonely fields and +cabins, upon which the tomahawk had ruthlessly descended, is to be found +the psychology of the furious passions, which hurried the wretched +Conestoga Indians out of existence, and of the outspoken or covert +sympathy, which made a mockery of the attempt to bring their butchers to +justice. Even men cooler than the Paxton Boys, hardened by revolting +cruelties, not distinguishable from those inflicted by talon or tooth, +except in their atrocious refinements of torture, and yet brought home in +some form or other to almost every fireside in Pennsylvania, came to think +of killing and mutilating an Indian with no more compunction than if he +were a rattlesnake. James Parton mentions with a natural shudder the fact +that Governor John Penn, after the retirement of the Paxton Boys from +Philadelphia, offered the following bounties: For every captive male Indian +of any hostile tribe one hundred and fifty dollars; for every female +captive one hundred and thirty-eight dollars, for the scalp of a male +Indian one hundred and thirty-four dollars, for the scalp of a female +Indian fifty dollars. To Franklin himself, when on the Gnadenhutten +expedition, fell the duty of instructing a Captain Vanetta, who was about +to raise a company of foot-soldiers for the protection of upper Smithfield, +while its inhabitants were looking after their corn, that forty dollars +would be allowed and paid by the Provincial Government for each Indian +scalp produced by one of his men with the proper attestations. How +accustomed even Franklin became to the ever-repeated story of Indian +barbarities, and to occasional reprisals by the whites, hardly less +shocking, is revealed by a brief letter from him to Peter Collinson in +1764, in which, with the dry conciseness of an old English chronicler, he +reports the narratives of a British soldier, Owens, who had deserted to the +Indians, and a white boy, whom Owens had brought back with him from +captivity, together with five propitiatory Indian scalps, when he returned +to his former allegiance. + + The Account given by him and the Boy [wrote Franklin] + is, that they were with a Party of nine Indians, to + wit, 5 men, 2 Women, and 2 Children, coming down + Susquehanah to fetch Corn from their last Year's + Planting Place; that they went ashore and encamp'd at + Night and made a Fire by which they slept; that in the + Night Owens made the White Boy get up from among the + Indians, and go to the other side of the Fire; and then + taking up the Indians' Guns, he shot two of the Men + immediately, and with his Hatchet dispatch'd another + Man together with the Women and Children. Two men only + made their escape. Owens scalp'd the 5 grown Persons, + and bid the White Boy scalp the Children; but he + declin'd it, so they were left. + +Franklin, however, was not the man to say, as General Philip Sheridan was +many years afterwards to be reputed to have said, that the only good Indian +is a dead Indian. In the course of his varied life, he had many +opportunities for becoming familiarly acquainted with the history and +character of the Indians, and forming a just judgment as to how far their +fiendish outbreaks were due to sheer animal ferocity, and how far to the +provocation of ill-treatment by the whites; and he was too just not to know +and declare that almost every war between the Indians and the whites in his +time had been occasioned by some injustice of the latter towards the +former. As far back as 1753, he and Isaac Norris, the Speaker of the +Assembly, were appointed commissioners by it to unite with Richard Peters, +the Secretary of the Proprietary Government, in negotiating a treaty with +the western Indians at Carlisle, and the manner, in which this treaty was +conducted, is told in the _Autobiography_ in his lively way. In 1756, he +again served as a commissioner, this time with William Logan and Richard +Peters, two members of the Governor's Council, and Joseph Fox, William +Masters and John Hughes, three members of the Assembly, for the purpose of +negotiating a treaty at Easton with Teedyuscung, the King of the Delawares. +At this conference, Governor Denny himself was likewise present. In 1763, +he was appointed one of the commissioners to expend the money appropriated +by the Assembly for levying a military force to defend the Pennsylvania +frontier against the Indians. The Albany Congress, as we have seen, brought +him into direct personal contact with the Iroquois who, to a fell savagery +only to be compared with that of the most ferocious beasts of the jungle, +united a capacity for political cohesion and the rudiments of civilized +life which gave them quite an exceptional standing in the history of the +American Indian. By virtue of these circumstances, to say nothing of other +sources of knowledge and information, Franklin obtained an insight, at once +shrewd and profound, into everything that related to the American Indian, +including the best methods by which his good will could be conciliated and +his trade secured. The following remarks in his Canada Pamphlet give us a +good idea of the mobility and special adaptation to his physical +environment which made the Indian, in proportion to his numbers, the most +formidable foe that the world has ever seen: + + They go to war, as they call it, in small parties, from + fifty men down to five. Their hunting life has made + them acquainted with the whole country, and scarce any + part of it is impracticable to such a party. They can + travel thro' the woods even by night, and know how to + conceal their tracks. They pass easily between your + forts undiscovered; and privately approach the + settlements of your frontier inhabitants. They need no + convoys of provisions to follow them; for whether they + are shifting from place to place in the woods, or lying + in wait for an opportunity to strike a blow, every + thicket and every stream furnishes so small a number + with sufficient subsistence. When they have surpriz'd + separately, and murder'd and scalp'd a dozen families, + they are gone with inconceivable expedition through + unknown ways, and 'tis very rare that pursuers have any + chance of coming up with them. In short, long + experience has taught our planters, that they cannot + rely upon forts as a security against _Indians_: The + inhabitants of _Hackney_ might as well rely upon the + tower of _London_ to secure them against highwaymen and + housebreakers. + +This is the Indian seen from the point of view of the soldier and colonial +administrator. He is fully as interesting, when considered by Franklin in a +letter to Richard Jackson from the point of view of the philosopher: + + They visit us frequently, and see the advantages that + arts, sciences, and compact societies procure us. They + are not deficient in natural understanding; and yet + they have never shown any inclination to change their + manner of life for ours, or to learn any of our arts. + When an Indian child has been brought up among us, + taught our language, and habituated to our customs, + yet, if he goes to see his relatives, and makes one + Indian ramble with them, there is no persuading him + ever to return. And that this is not natural to them + merely as Indians, but as men, is plain from this, that + when white persons, of either sex, have been taken + prisoners by the Indians, and lived a while with them, + though ransomed by their friends, and treated with all + imaginable tenderness to prevail with them to stay + among the English, yet in a short time they become + disgusted with our manner of life, and the care and + pains that are necessary to support it, and take the + first opportunity of escaping again into the woods, + from whence there is no redeeming them. One instance I + remember to have heard, where the person was brought + home to possess a good estate; but, finding some care + necessary to keep it together, he relinquished it to a + younger brother, reserving to himself nothing but a gun + and a match-coat, with which he took his way again into + the wilderness. + + So that I am apt to imagine that close societies, + subsisting by labour and art, arose first not from + choice but from necessity, when numbers, being driven + by war from their hunting grounds, and prevented by + seas, or by other nations, from obtaining other hunting + grounds, were crowded together into some narrow + territories, which without labour could not afford them + food. + +A man had to be humorous, indeed, to see anything humorous in the American +Indian, but Franklin's sense of the ludicrous was equal to even that +supreme achievement. We have already referred to the image of hell that he +saw in the nocturnal orgies of the drunken Indians at Carlisle. Prudently +enough, they were not allowed by the Provincial Commissioners to have the +rum that was in store for them until they had ratified the treaty entered +into on that occasion; an artifice that doubtless proved quite as effective +in hastening its consummation as the one adopted by Chaplain Beatty of +distributing the rum before, instead of after, prayers, did in securing the +punctual attendance of Franklin's soldiers at them. But diabolical as were +the gestures and yells of the drink-crazed Indians, men and women, at +Carlisle, Franklin contrived to bring away a facetious story from the +conference for the _Autobiography_. The orator, who called on the +Commissioners the next day, after the debauch, for the purpose of +apologizing for the conduct of himself and his people, + + laid it upon the rum; and then endeavoured to excuse + the rum by saying, "_The Great Spirit, who made all + things, made everything for some use, and whatever use + he design'd anything for, that use it should always be + put to. Now, when he made rum, he said 'Let this be for + the Indians to get drunk with'; and it must be so._"... + And indeed [adds Franklin] if it be the design of + Providence to extirpate these savages in order to make + room for cultivators of the earth, it seems not + improbable that rum may be the appointed means. It has + already annihilated all the tribes who formerly + inhabited the seacoast. + +There is another good Indian story in the letter from Franklin to Richard +Jackson from which we have recently quoted. When everything had been +settled at a conference between the Six Nations and some of the Colonies, +and nothing remained to be gone through with but a mutual exchange of +civilities, the English Commissioners told the Indians that they had in +their country a college for the instruction of youth in the various +languages, arts and sciences, and that, if the Indians were willing, they +would take back with them a half-dozen of their brightest lads and bring +them up in the best manner. The Indians, after weighing the proposal, +replied that they remembered that some of their youths had formerly been +educated at that college, but that it had been observed that for a long +time, after they returned to their friends, they were absolutely good for +nothing; being neither acquainted with the true methods of killing deer, +catching beaver, or surprising an enemy. The proposition, however, they +regarded as a mark of kindness and good will on the part of the English, +which merited a grateful return, and therefore, if the English gentlemen +would send a dozen or two of their children to Opondago, the Great Council +would take care of their education, bring them up in what was really the +best manner, and make men of them.[17] + +That the whites had much to answer for in their intercourse with the +Indians Franklin saw clearly. The Canada Pamphlet speaks of the goods sold +to them by French and English traders as loaded with all the impositions +that fraud and knavery could contrive to enhance their value, and in one of +Franklin's notes on the Albany plan of union he referred many Indian wars +to cheating, practised by Indian traders on Indians, whom they had first +made drunk. These traders he termed on another occasion, "the most vicious +and abandoned Wretches of our Nation." "I do not believe we shall ever have +a firm peace with the Indians," he wrote to Thomas Pownall in 1756, "till +we have well drubbed them." This was the natural language of a man who had +no toleration for wanton applications of force but did not shrink from +applying it, when nothing else would answer. But no man could have been +more fearless than he in denouncing outrages committed by the whites upon +inoffensive Indians, or Indians of any sort, when not on the war path. "It +grieves me," he wrote to Sir William Johnson in 1766, "to hear that our +Frontier People are yet greater Barbarians than the Indians, and continue +to murder them in time of peace." + +His views about the proper methods of controlling the Indians and securing +their trade were worthy of his liberal and enlightened mind. Their +friendship he deemed to be of the greatest consequence to the Colonies, and +the best way to make sure of it, he thought, was to regulate trade between +the whites and the Indians in such a way as to convince the latter that, as +between France and England, the English goods were the best and cheapest, +and the English merchants the most honorable, and to form a union between +the Colonies strong enough to make the Indians feel that they could depend +on it for protection against the French, or that they would suffer at its +hands if they should break with it. The Indian trade, for which the +colonists had sacrificed so much blood and treasure, was, he boldly +reminded his auditors, in his famous examination before the House of +Commons, not an American but a British interest, maintained with British +manufactures for the profit of British merchants and manufacturers. In a +letter to Cadwallader Colden, he even suggested that the Government should +take it over, and furnish goods to the Indians at the cheapest prices, +without regard to profit, as Massachusetts had done. + +Other suggestions of Franklin with respect to the conduct of the Indian +trade were hardly less interesting. Pittsburg, he contended, after the +restoration of peace in 1759, should be retained by the English, with a +small tract of land about it for supplying the fort with provisions, and +with sufficient hunting grounds in its vicinity for the peculiar needs of +their Indian friends. A fort, and a small population of sober, orderly +people there, he thought, would help to preserve the friendship of the +Indians by bringing trade and the arts into close proximity to them, and +would bridle them, if seduced from their allegiance by the French, or +would, at least, stand in the gap, and be a shield to the other American +frontiers. + +Another suggestion of his was that, in time of peace, parties should be +allowed to issue from frontier garrisons on hunting expeditions, with or +without Indians, and enjoy the profits of the peltry that they brought +back. In this way, a body of wood-runners would be formed, well acquainted +with the country and of great value in time of war as guides and scouts. +Every Indian was a hunter, every Indian was a disciplined soldier. They +hunted in precisely the same manner as they made war. The only difference +was that in hunting they skulked, surprised and killed animals, and, in +making war, men. It was just such soldiers that the colonies needed; for +the European military discipline was of little use in the woods. These +words were penned four or five years before the battle of the Monongahela +confirmed so bloodily their truth. Franklin also thought that a number of +sober, discreet smiths should be encouraged to reside among the Indians. +The whole subsistence of Indians depended on their keeping their guns in +order. They were a people that thought much of their temporal, but little +of their spiritual interests, and, therefore, a smith was more likely to +influence them than a Jesuit. In a letter to his son, he mentions that he +had dined recently with Lord Shelburne, and had availed himself of the +occasion to urge that a colony should be planted in the Illinois country +for furnishing provisions to military garrisons more cheaply, clinching the +hold of the English upon the country, and building up a strength which, in +the event of a future war, might easily be poured down the Mississippi upon +the lower country, and into the Bay of Mexico, to be used against Cuba or +Mexico itself. + +The reader has already had brought to his attention the provisions of the +Albany plan of union which were intended to vest in the government sketched +by it the control of Indian treaties, trade and purchases. + +The ignorance of the Indian character, which prevailed in England, often, +we may be sure, brought a smile to the face of Franklin. Among his writings +are remarks made at the request of Lord Shelburne on a plan for regulating +Indian affairs submitted to him by the latter. It is to be regretted that +the circumstances of the case were such that it was impossible for Franklin +to escape the restraints of official gravity even when he was assigning the +rambling habits of the Indians as his reason for believing that an Indian +chief would hardly be willing to reside permanently with one of the +functionaries, who was to aid in carrying the plan into effect, or when he +was giving the high value, that the Indian attached to personal liberty, +and the low value, that he attached to personal property, as his reason for +thinking that imprisonment for debt was scarcely consistent with aboriginal +ideas of equity. The plan was of a piece with the suggestion attributed to +Dean Tucker that the colonies should be protected from Indian incursions by +clearing away the trees and bushes from a tract of land, a mile in width, +at the back of the colonies. As Benjamin Vaughan said, this brilliant idea +not only involved a first cost (not to mention the fact that trees and +bushes grow again when cut down) of some £128,000 for every hundred miles +but quite overlooked the fact that the Indians, like other people, knew the +difference between day and night. He forgot, said Franklin, "that there is +a night in every twenty-four hours." + +The distinction, which Franklin enjoyed in England, during his first +mission to that country, was due to his philosophical and literary +reputation, but his second mission to England and the colonial agencies, +held by him while it lasted, afforded him an opportunity for playing a +conspicuous part in the stirring transactions, which ushered in the +American Revolution. Apart from all other considerations, his place in the +history of these transactions will always be an extraordinary one because +of the consummate wisdom and self-restraint exhibited by him in his +relations to the controversy that finally ended in a fratricidal war +between Great Britain and her colonies, which should never have been +kindled. To the issues, involved in this controversy, he brought a vision +as undimmed by political bigotry and false economic conceptions of colonial +dependence as that of a British statesman of the present day. It is easy to +believe that, if his counsels had been heeded, Great Britain and the +communities, which make up the American Union, would now be connected by +some close organic or federative tie. It is, at least, certain that no +other Englishman on either side of the Atlantic saw as clearly as he did +the true interests of both parties to the fatal conflict, or strove with +such unerring sagacity and sober moderation of purpose to avert the breach +between the two great branches of the English People. In no way can the +extreme folly, which forced independence upon the colonies, be better +measured than by contrasting the heated vehemence of Franklin's later +feelings about the King and Parliament with his earlier sentiments towards +the country that he did not cease to call "home" until to call it so would +have been mockery. Devoted attachment to England, the land endeared to him +by so many ties of family, intellectual sympathy and friendship, profound +loyalty to the British Crown, deep-seated reverence for the laws, +institutions and usages of the noble people, in whose inheritance of +enlightened freedom he vainly insisted upon having his full share as an +Englishman, were all characteristics of his, before the alienation of the +colonies from Great Britain.[18] + +His earlier utterances breathe a spirit of ingrained loyalty to the British +Crown. The French were "mischievous neighbors," France "that perfidious +nation." "I congratulate you on the defeat of Jacobitism by your glorious +Duke," he wrote to Strahan in 1746, after the Duke of Cumberland had earned +his title of "The Butcher" at Culloden. "I pray God to preserve long to +Great Britain the English Laws, Manners, Liberties, and Religion," was an +exclamation seven years later in one of his letters to Richard Jackson. +"Wise and good prince," "the best of Kings," "Your good King," are some of +the terms in which he expressed his opinion of his royal master. In the +light of later events, there is something little short of amusing about the +horoscope which he framed of the reign of George the Third in a letter to +Strahan a year or so before the passage of the Stamp Act. Replying to +forebodings of Strahan, Franklin said of the Prince, whom he styled "Our +virtuous young King": + + On the contrary, I am of Opinion that his Virtue and + the Consciousness of his sincere Intentions to make his + People happy will give him Firmness and Steadiness in + his Measures and in the Support of the honest Friends + he has chosen to serve him; and when that Firmness is + fully perceiv'd, Faction will dissolve and be + dissipated like a Morning Fog before the rising Sun, + leaving the rest of the Day clear with a Sky serene and + cloudless. Such after a few of the first Years will be + the future course of his Majesty's Reign, which I + predict will be happy and truly glorious. + +In his letter to Polly about the French King and Queen, whom he had seen +dining in state, which was written the year after the repeal of the Stamp +Act, he declared, in his fear that he might seem to be too well pleased +with them, that no Frenchman should go beyond him in thinking his own King +and Queen, "the very best in the World, and the most amiable." The popular +commotions in the succeeding year, with their watch cry of Wilkes and +Liberty, seemed to him to indicate that some punishment was preparing for a +people, who were ungratefully abusing the best Constitution and the best +King that any nation was ever blessed with. As late as 1770, he wrote to +Dr. Samuel Cooper, "Let us, therefore, hold fast our Loyalty to our King, +who has the best Disposition towards us, and has a Family Interest in our +Prosperity." Indeed, even two years later than this, he complacently wrote +to his son, "The King, too, has lately been heard to speak of me with great +regard." Strangely enough it was not until two years before the battle of +Bunker Hill that he awoke sufficiently from his fool's paradise to write to +his son, "Between you and I, the late Measures have been, I suspect, very +much the King's own, and he has in some Cases a great Share of what his +Friends call _Firmness_." Even then he hazarded the opinion that by +painstaking and proper management the wrong impression of the colonists +that George the Third had received might be removed. Down to this time so +secretly had the King pursued the insidious system of corruption by which +he kept his Parliamentary majority unmurmuringly subservient to his system +of personal government, that Franklin does not appear to have even +suspected that his was the master hand, or rather purse, which shaped all +its proceedings against America. When the whole truth, however, was made +manifest to Franklin, his awakening was correspondingly rude and +unforgiving. How completely reversed became the current of all his feelings +towards George the Third, after the Revolution began, we have already seen +in some of our references to letters written by him to his English friends, +in which the King, whom he once revered, was scored in terms of passionate +reprobation. + +Tenacious, too, was the affection with which Franklin clung to England and +the English people. Some years before the passage of the Stamp Act, he +wrote to Lord Kames from London that he purposed to give form to the +material that he had been gathering for his _Art of Virtue_ when he +returned to his _other_ country, that is to say, America. + + Of all the enviable Things England has [he wrote a few + years later to Polly], I envy it most its People. Why + should that petty Island, which compar'd to America, is + but like a stepping Stone in a Brook, scarce enough of + it above Water to keep one's Shoes dry; why, I say, + should that little Island enjoy in almost every + Neighbourhood, more sensible, virtuous, and elegant + Minds, than we can collect in ranging 100 Leagues of + our vast Forests? + +How eagerly even when he was in the New World he relished the observations +of his friend Strahan on current English politics, we have already seen. We +have also already seen how seriously he entertained even the thought of +transferring his family for good to England. Indeed his intense loyalty to +English King and People, together with his remoteness from the contagious +excitement of the Colonies over the passage of the Stamp Act, caused him +for a time, with a curious insensibility to the real state of public +opinion in America, to lag far behind the revolutionary movement in that +country. Not only, before he was fully aroused to the stern purpose of his +fellow-countrymen to resist the collection of the stamp tax to the last +extremity, did he recommend his friend John Hughes to the British Ministry +as a stamp-tax collector, and send to his partner Hall a large quantity of +paper for the use of the _Gazette_, of such dimensions as to secure a +saving in stamps for its issues, but he wrote to Hughes in these terms +besides: + + If it (the Stamp Act) continues, your undertaking to + execute it may make you unpopular for a Time, but your + acting with Coolness and Steadiness, and with every + Circumstance in your Power of Favour to the People, + will by degrees reconcile them. In the meantime, a firm + Loyalty to the Crown & faithful Adherence to the + Government of this Nation, which it is the Safety as + well as Honour of the Colonies to be connected with, + will always be the wisest Course for you and I to take, + whatever may be the Madness of the Populace or their + blind Leaders, who can only bring themselves and + Country into Trouble and draw on greater Burthens by + Acts of Rebellious Tendency. + +The rashness of the Virginia Assembly in relation to the Stamp Act he +thought simply amazing. + +Much better known is the letter that he wrote about the same time to +Charles Thomson. After stating that he had done everything in his power to +prevent the passage of the Stamp Act, he said: + + But the Tide was too strong against us. The nation was + provoked by American Claims of Independence, and all + Parties joined in resolving by this act to settle the + point. We might as well have hindered the sun's + setting. That we could not do. But since 'tis down, my + Friend, and it may be long before it rises again, let + us make as good a night of it as we can. We may still + light candles. Frugality and Industry will go a great + way toward indemnifying us. Idleness and Pride tax with + a heavier hand than Kings and Parliaments; if we can + get rid of the former, we may easily bear the latter. + +Six months later, when the loud and fierce protest of his fellow-countrymen +against the Stamp Act had reached his ear, and convinced him that they were +more likely to light camp-fires than candles, he held a very different +language. Asked, during his famous examination before the House of Commons, +whether he thought that the people of America would submit to pay the Stamp +Tax, if it were moderated, he replied, "No, never, unless compelled by +force of arms." Public leaders, after all, to use Gladstone's happy image +with regard to the orator, do little more than give back in rain what they +receive in mist from the mass of men. But with the repeal of the Stamp Act, +and part of the duties imposed upon America, Franklin would readily have +lapsed in every respect into his old affectionate relations to England, if +Parliament had not, by its unwise reservation of its right to tax America, +fallen into the bad surgery, to use his own words, of leaving splinters in +the wound that it had inflicted. It now seems strange enough that, after +the turbulent outbreak in America, which preceded the repeal, he should +have been willing to accept a post under the Duke of Grafton, and to remain +in England for some time longer if not for the rest of his life; yet such +is the fact. When he heard through a friend that the Duke had said that, if +he chose rather to reside in England than to return to his office as Deputy +Postmaster-General for America, it would not be the Duke's fault, if he was +not well provided for, he declared in the polished phrases of a courtier +that there was no nobleman, to whom he could from sincere respect for his +great abilities and amiable qualities so cordially attach himself, or to +whom he should so willingly be obliged for the provision mentioned, as to +the Duke of Grafton, if his Grace should think that he could in any +station, where he might be placed, be serviceable to him and to the public. +To any one who knows what a profligate the Duke was, during the most +scandalous part of his career, this language sounds not a little like the +conventional phrases in which Franklin, during his mission to France, +assured Crocco, the blackmailing emissary of the piratical emperor of +Morocco that he had no doubt but that, as soon as the affairs of the United +States were a little settled, they would manifest equally good dispositions +as those of his master and take all the proper steps to cultivate and +secure the friendship of a monarch, whose character, Franklin knew, they +had long esteemed and respected. + +But in the same letter to his son, in which the declaration about the Duke +of Grafton was recalled, Franklin made it clear that he was unwilling, by +accepting office, to place himself in the power of any English Minister +committed to the fatuous policy of taxing America. It was not until +forbearance had ceased to be a virtue, and an American Whig could no longer +hold an English office without reproach, that his innate conservatism of +character yielded to the forces which were slowly but certainly rending the +two countries apart. Three years after the repeal of the Stamp Act, which +he dubbed "the mother of mischief," he wrote to Jean Baptiste Le Roy of the +popular disturbances in Boston as "sudden, unpremeditated things, that +happened only among a few of the lower sort." A month later, he wrote to +Dr. Cooper: + + I have been in constant Pain since I heard of Troops + assembling at Boston, lest the Madness of Mobs, or the + Insolence of Soldiers, or both, should, when too near + each other, occasion some Mischief difficult to be + prevented or repaired, and which might spread far and + wide. "I hope however," he added, "that Prudence will + predominate, and keep all quiet." + +A little later still, in another letter to the same correspondent, after +saying that he could scarcely conceive a King of better dispositions, of +more exemplary virtues, or more truly desirous of promoting the welfare of +all his subjects than was George the Third, he further and truly said: "The +Body of this People, too, is of a noble and generous Nature, loving and +honouring the Spirit of Liberty, and hating arbitrary Power of all sorts. +We have many, very many, friends among them." + +As late as the autumn of 1774 he was grieved to hear of mobs and violence +and the pulling down of houses in America, which the friends of America in +England could not justify, and which gave a great advantage to the enemies +of America in that country. He was in perpetual anxiety, he wrote Thomas +Cushing, lest the mad measures of mixing soldiers among a people whose +minds were in such a state of irritation might be attended with some +mischief, for an accidental quarrel, a personal insult, an imprudent order, +an insolent execution of even a prudent one, or twenty other things might +produce a tumult, unforeseen, and, therefore, impossible to be prevented, +in which such a carnage might ensue as to make a breach that could never +afterwards be healed. That the insults of Wedderburn, heaped upon Franklin +in the Privy Council Chamber, under circumstances, calculated to make him +feel as if all England were pillorying him, and his subsequent dismissal +from the office of Deputy Postmaster-General for America, exerted some +degree of corrosive influence upon his mind cannot be denied; but he still +kept up his counsels of patience to his people upon the other side of the +Atlantic until patience no longer had any meaning, and, when his last +efforts, just before he left England for Independence Hall, to bring about +a satisfactory adjustment of the quarrel between Great Britain and her +colonies finally came to nothing, the tears that Priestley tells us wet his +cheeks, as he was leaving England, were proof enough that even a nature, +little given to weakness, might well grow faint at the thought of such a +tragic separation as that of England and the thirteen colonies nurtured at +her breast. But no one can read the life of Franklin without feeling that +there never was a time when his heart was not wholly true to the just +rights of America. In America, he might miss the companionship of the +learned and distinguished friends from whose conversation he derived so +much profit and pleasure in England and France. Only such a capital as +London or Paris could fully gratify the social and intellectual wants of a +man whose survey of human existence was so little subject to cramping +restrictions of any kind. But it was the very breadth of Franklin's +character which made him first of all an American, instinct with the free +spirit of the New World, and faithful to the democratic institutions and +ideals, which throve on its freshness and exemption from inherited +complications. Over and over again, when he is abroad, he compares the +economic and political conditions of his own country with those of foreign +countries to the marked disadvantage of the latter. The painful +impression, left upon his mind by the squalor and misery of the lower +orders of the Irish people, is manifest enough in his correspondence. + + Ireland is in itself [he declared in a letter to Thomas + Cushing] a poor Country, and Dublin a magnificent City; + but the appearances of general extreme poverty among + the lower people are amazing. They live in wretched + hovels of mud and straw, are clothed in rags, and + subsist chiefly on potatoes. Our New England farmers, + of the poorest sort, in regard to the Enjoyment of all + the Comforts of life, are princes when compared to + them. Such is the effect of the discouragements of + industry, the non-residence not only of pensioners, but + of many original landlords, who lease their lands in + gross to undertakers that rack the tenants and fleece + them skin and all to make estates to themselves, while + the first rents, as well as most of the pensions, are + spent out of the country. An English gentleman there + said to me, that by what he had heard of the good + grazing in North America, and by what he saw of the + plenty of flax-seed imported in Ireland from thence, he + could not understand why we did not rival Ireland in + the beef and butter trade to the West Indies, and share + with it in its linen trade. But he was satisfied when I + told him that I supposed the reason might be, _our + people eat beef and butter every day, and wear shirts + themselves_. + + In short, the chief exports of Ireland seem to be + pinched off the backs and out of the bellies of the + miserable inhabitants. + +Darker and more forbidding still glooms the background of the joyous hours +spent by Franklin in Ireland, Scotland and England in these painful words +which he wrote to Dr. Joshua Babcock in the early part of 1772: + + I have lately made a Tour thro' Ireland and Scotland. + In those Countries a small Part of the Society are + Landlords, great Noblemen, and Gentlemen, extreamly + opulent, living in the highest Affluence and + Magnificence: The Bulk of the People Tenants, extreamly + poor, living in the most sordid Wretchedness, in dirty + Hovels of Mud and Straw, and cloathed only in Rags. + + I thought often of the Happiness of New England, where + every Man is a Freeholder, has a Vote in publick + Affairs, lives in a tidy, warm House, has plenty of + good Food and Fewel, with whole cloaths from Head to + Foot, the Manufacture perhaps of his own Family. Long + may they continue in this Situation! But if they should + ever envy the Trade of these Countries, I can put them + in a Way to obtain a Share of it. Let them with three + fourths of the People of Ireland live the Year round on + Potatoes and Buttermilk, without shirts, then may their + Merchants export Beef, Butter, and Linnen. Let them, + with the Generality of the Common People of Scotland, + go Barefoot, then may they make large exports in Shoes + and Stockings: And if they will be content to wear + Rags, like the Spinners and Weavers of England, they + may make Cloths and Stuffs for all Parts of the World. + + Farther, if my Countrymen should ever wish for the + honour of having among them a gentry enormously + wealthy, let them sell their Farms & pay rack'd Rents; + the Scale of the Landlords will rise as that of the + Tenants is depress'd, who will soon become poor, + tattered, dirty, and abject in Spirit. Had I never been + in the American Colonies, but was to form my Judgment + of Civil Society by what I have lately seen, I should + never advise a Nation of Savages to admit of + Civilization: For I assure you, that, in the Possession + & Enjoyment of the various Comforts of Life, compar'd + to these People every Indian is a Gentleman: And the + Effect of this kind of Civil Society seems only to be, + the depressing Multitudes below the Savage State that a + few may be rais'd above it. + +America on the other hand, as Franklin pictured it, was the land of neither +the very rich nor the very poor, but one in which "a general happy +mediocrity" prevailed. It was not a Lubberland, nor a Pays de Cocagne, +where the streets were paved with half-peck loaves, and the houses tiled +with pancakes, and where the fowls flew about ready roasted, crying Come +eat me! These were all wild imaginations. On the contrary, it was a land +of labor, but also a land where multitudes of emigrants from foreign lands, +who would never have emerged from poverty, if they had remained at home, +had, with savings out of the wages, earned by them, after they arrived in +America, acquired land, and, in a few years, become wealthy farmers. It was +a land, too, where religious infidelity was unknown, and where all the +means of education were plenteous, the general manners simple and pure, and +the temptations to vice and folly fewer than in England. + +The contrast between political conditions in Great Britain and political +conditions in America was in Franklin's opinion equally unfavorable to +Great Britain. Loyal as he was to the King, attached as he was to the +English people, he harbored a deep feeling of aversion and contempt for the +Parliament which he did not realize was but the marionette of the King. +When certain residents of Oxford, after being confined for some days in +Newgate for corrupt practices, knelt before the Speaker of the House of +Commons, and received his reprimand, Franklin wrote to Galloway: + + The House could scarcely keep countenances, knowing as + they all do, that the practice is general. People say, + they mean nothing more than to _beat down the price_ by + a little discouragement of borough jobbing, now that + their own elections are all coming on. The price indeed + is grown exorbitant, no less than _four thousand + pounds_ for a member. + +In the same letter, a grim story is told of the callous levity with which +the Parliamentary majority regarded its own debasement. It was founded upon +a bill brought in by Beckford for preventing bribery and corruption at +elections, which contained a clause obliging every member to swear, on his +admission to the House, that he had not directly or indirectly given any +bribe to any elector. This clause was so generally opposed as answering no +end except that of inducing the members to perjure themselves that it was +withdrawn. Commenting on the incident, Franklin said: + + It was indeed a cruel contrivance of his, worse than + the gunpowder plot; for that was only to blow the + Parliament up to heaven, this to sink them all down to + ----. Mr. Thurlow opposed his bill by a long speech. + Beckford, in reply, gave a dry hit to the House, that + is repeated everywhere. "The honourable gentleman," + says he, "in his learned discourse, gave us first one + definition of corruption, then he gave us another + definition of corruption, and I think he was about to + give us a third. Pray does that gentleman imagine + _there is any member of this House that does not_ KNOW + what corruption is?" which occasioned only a roar of + laughter, for they are so hardened in the practice, + that they are very little ashamed of it. + +Later Franklin wrote to Galloway that it was thought that near two million +pounds would be spent in the Parliamentary election then pending, but that +it was computed that the Crown had _two millions a year in places and +pensions to dispose of_. On the same day, he wrote to his son, "In short, +this whole venal nation is now at market, will be sold for about two +millions, and might be bought out of the hands of the present bidders (if +he would offer half a million more) by the very Devil himself." To Thomas +Cushing he wrote that luxury brought most of the Commons as well as Lords +to market, and that, if America would save for three or four years the +money she spent in the fashions and fineries and fopperies of England, she +might buy the whole Parliament, minister and all. + +Over against these depraved electoral conditions he was in the habit of +placing the simpler and purer conditions of his native land. In most of the +Colonies, he declared in his _Rise and Progress of the Differences between +Great_ _Britain and her American Colonies_, there was no such thing as +standing candidate for election. There was neither treating nor bribing. No +man expressed the least inclination to be chosen. Instead of humble +advertisements, entreating votes and interest, one saw before every new +election requests of former members, acknowledging the honor done them by +preceding elections, but setting forth their long service and attendance on +the public business in that station, and praying that in consideration +thereof some other person might be chosen in their room. After a +dissolution, the same representatives might be and usually were re-elected +without asking a vote or giving even a glass of cider to an elector. On the +eve of his return to America in 1775, the contrast between the extreme +corruption prevalent in the old rotten state and the glorious public +virtue, so predominant in rising America, as he expressed it, assumed a +still more aggravated form. After mentioning in his last letter to his +friend Galloway the "Numberless and needless Places, enormous Salaries, +Pensions, Perquisites, Bribes, groundless Quarrels, foolish Expeditions, +false Accounts or no Accounts, Contracts and Jobbs," which in England +devoured all revenue, and produced continual necessity in the midst of +natural plenty, he said: + + I apprehend, therefore, that to unite us intimately + will only be to corrupt and poison us also. It seems + like Mezentius's coupling and binding together the dead + and the living. + + "Tormenti genus, et sanie taboque fluentes, + Complexu in misero, longâ sic morte necabat." + + However [he added with his readily re-awakened loyalty + to the mother country], I would try anything, and bear + anything that can be borne with Safety to our just + Liberties, rather than engage in a War with such near + relations, unless compelled to it by dire Necessity in + our own Defence. + +Nor was any American of Franklin's time more profoundly conscious than he +of the growing power and splendid destiny of the Colonies. His familiarity +with America was singularly minute and accurate. He had supped at its inns +and sojourned in its homes, been delayed at its ferries and crippled on its +roads. In one way or another, he had acquired a correct and searching +insight into almost everything that related to its political, social and +industrial life. His answers to the questions put to him during his famous +examination before the House of Lords have been justly reputed to be among +the most striking of all the proofs of ability that he ever gave, marked as +they were by great wisdom and acuteness, marvellous conciseness as well as +clearness of statement, invincible tact and dexterity. But in no respect +are these answers more remarkable than in the knowledge that they display +of colonial America in all its relations. Accompanying this knowledge, too, +was unquestionably a powerful feeling of affection for the land of his +birth which renders us more or less skeptical as to whether he was at all +certain of himself on the different occasions when he expressed his +willingness to die in some other land than his own. + + I have indeed [he wrote to his son from England in + 1772] so many good kind Friends here, that I could + spend the Remainder of my Life among them with great + Pleasure, if it were not for my American connections, & + the indelible Affection I retain for that dear Country, + from which I have so long been in a State of Exile. + +At all times the tread of those coming millions of human beings, which the +family fecundity of America made certain, sounded majestically in his ears. +Referring to America in a letter to Lord Kames in the year after the repeal +of the Stamp Act, he employed these significant words: + + She may suffer at present under the arbitrary power of + this country; she may suffer for a while in a + separation from it; but these are temporary evils that + she will outgrow. Scotland and Ireland are differently + circumstanced. Confined by the sea, they can scarcely + increase in numbers, wealth and strength, so as to + overbalance England. But America, an immense territory, + favoured by Nature with all advantages of climate, + soil, great navigable rivers, and lakes, &c. must + become a great country, populous and mighty; and will, + in a less time than is generally conceived, be able to + shake off any shackles that may be imposed on her, and + perhaps place them on the imposers. In the mean time, + every act of oppression will sour their tempers, lessen + greatly, if not annihilate the profits of your commerce + with them, and hasten their final revolt; for the seeds + of liberty are universally found there, and nothing can + eradicate them. + +Even, if confined westward by the Mississippi and northward by the St. +Lawrence and the Lakes, he thought that, in some centuries, the population +of America would amount to one hundred millions of people. + +Such were the prepossessions brought by Franklin to the controversy between +Great Britain and her colonies. In his view he was none the less an +Englishman because he was an American, and, as the controversy gained in +rancor, his dual allegiance to the two countries led to no little +misconstruction. To an unknown correspondent he wrote several years after +the repeal of the Stamp Act that he was becoming weary of talking and +writing about the quarrel, "especially," he said, "as I do not find that I +have gained any point, in either country, except that of rendering myself +suspected by my impartiality; in England of being too much an American, and +in America, of being too much an Englishman." + +His view of the legal tie between England and the Colonies was very simple. +How, he wrote to William Franklin, the people of Boston could admit that +the General Court of Massachusetts was subordinate to Parliament, and yet, +in the same breath, deny the power of Parliament to enact laws for them, he +could not understand; nor could he understand what bounds the Farmer's +Letters set to the authority in Parliament, which they conceded, to +"regulate the trade of the Colonies." It was difficult, he thought, to draw +lines between duties for regulation and those for revenue; and, if +Parliament was to be the judge, it seemed to him that the distinction would +amount to little. Two years previously, however, when examined before the +House of Commons; he had stated that, while the right of a Parliament in +which the colonies were not represented to impose an internal tax upon them +was generally denied in America, he had never heard any objection urged in +America to duties laid by Parliament to regulate commerce; and, when he was +asked whether there was any kind of difference between the two taxes to the +colonies on which they might be laid, he had a prompt answer: + + I think the difference is very great. An external tax + is a duty laid on commodities imported; that duty is + added to the first cost and other charges on the + commodity, and, when it is offered to sale, makes a + part of the price. If the people do not like it at that + price, they refuse it; they are not obliged to pay it. + But an internal tax is forced from the people without + their consent, if not laid by their own + representatives. + +And then, when asked immediately afterwards whether, if the external tax or +duty was laid on the necessaries of life imported into Pennsylvania, that +would not be the same thing in its effects as an internal tax, he doubtless +filled the minds of his more insular auditors with astonishment by +replying, "I do not know a single article imported into the Northern +Colonies, but what they can either do without, or make themselves." + +Another neat answer in the examination was his answer when asked whether +there was any kind of difference between a duty on the importation of goods +and an excise on their consumption: + + Yes, a very material one; an excise, for the reasons I + have just mentioned, they (the colonists) think you can + have no right to lay within their country. But the sea + is yours; you maintain, by your fleets, the safety of + navigation in it, and keep it clear of pirates; you may + have therefore a natural and equitable right to some + toll or duty on merchandizes carried through that part + of your dominions, towards defraying the expence you + are at in ships to maintain the safety of that + carriage. + +Finally he grew weary of the repeated effort to fix the reproach of +inconsistency upon the colonies because of their acquiescence in +Parliamentary regulation of their commerce; and, when asked whether +Pennsylvania might not, by the same interpretation of her charter, object +to external as well as internal taxation without representation, he +replied: + + They never have hitherto. Many arguments have been + lately used here to show them, that there is no + difference, and that, if you have no right to tax them + internally, you have none to tax them externally, or + make any other law to bind them. At present they do not + reason so; but in time they may possibly be convinced + by these arguments. + +Nearly ten years later, Franklin had in a conversation with Lord Chatham at +his country seat a notable opportunity to say something further with +respect to Parliamentary regulations of American commerce. On this +occasion, the great English statesman, then earnestly engaged in a last +effort to avert the approaching rupture, observed that the opinion +prevailed in England that America aimed at setting up for itself as an +independent state; or at least getting rid of the Navigation Acts; and +Franklin assured him that, having more than once travelled almost from one +end of the continent to the other, and kept a great variety of company, +eating, drinking and conversing with them freely, he never had heard in any +conversation from any person, drunk or sober, the least expression of a +wish for a separation, or hint that such a thing would be advantageous to +America. And, as to the Navigation Act, he said that the main material part +of it, that of carrying on trade in British or Plantation bottoms, +excluding foreign ships from colonial ports, and navigating with three +fourths British seamen was as acceptable to America as it could be to +Britain. Indeed, he declared, America was not even against regulations of +the general commerce by Parliament, provided such regulations were _bona +fide_ for the benefit of the whole empire, not for the small advantage of +one part to the great injury of another, such as obliging American ships to +call in England with their wine and fruit from Portugal or Spain, the +restraints on American manufactures in the woollen and hat-making branches, +the prohibiting of slitting-mills, steel-works and the like. + +In the opinion of Franklin, Great Britain and America were legally +connected as England and Scotland were before the Union by having one +common sovereign. He denied that the instructions of the King had the force +of law in the Colonies, as Lord Granville had contended, or that the King +and Parliament had any legislative authority over them. "Something," he +told his son, "might be made of either of the extremes; that Parliament has +a power to make _all laws_ for us, or that it has a power to make _no laws_ +for us; and I think the arguments for the latter more numerous and weighty +than those for the former." The King with his Plantation Parliaments was, +in his opinion, the sole legislator of his American subjects, and, in that +capacity, was, and ought to be, free to exercise his own judgment, +unrestrained and unlimited by the English Parliament.[19] That the +Colonies were originally constituted distinct states and intended to be +continued such, was clear to him, he wrote to Dr. Cooper, from a thorough +consideration of their first charters and the whole conduct of the crown +and nation towards them until the Restoration. Since that time Parliament +had usurped an authority of making laws for them which before it had not, +and America had for some time submitted to the usurpation partly through +ignorance and inattention and partly from its weakness and inability to +contend. He wished therefore that such expressions as "the supreme +authority of Parliament," "the subordinacy of our Assemblies to the +Parliament" and the like were no longer employed in the colonies. These +opinions were formed at a time when he labored under the egregious error of +supposing that, in spite of the wicked machinations of his Parliament, the +King regarded his colonies with the eye of mild paternal favor; but they +remained his opinions long after he ceased to be the cheat of this +delusion. + +How far Franklin's idea of the legal bond between Great Britain and the +Colonies was a correct one is a technical inquiry that we need not discuss; +but his conception of the solidarity of interests which should exist +between all parts of the British Empire was as generous and glowing as any +federal rhapsodist of the present day could form. When he expounded it to +Lord Chatham at Hayes, the latter in his grand way declared that it was a +sound one, worthy of a great, benevolent and comprehensive mind. And such +it was. The truth is that Franklin was an Imperialist, and the union which +he saw was that of a vast English-speaking empire, made up of parts, held +in harmony with each other not only by their common English heritage but +also by a measure of self-government liberal enough to assure to each of +them an intelligent and sympathetic administration of its particular +interests. Until the colonial history of England began, all great empires, +he told Lord Chatham, had crumbled first at their extremities, because + + Countries remote from the Seat and Eye of Government + which therefore could not well understand their Affairs + for want of full and true Information, had never been + well governed but had been oppress'd by bad Governors, + on Presumption that Complaint was difficult to be made + and supported against them at such a distance. + +Had this process of disintegration not been invited in recent years by +wrong politics (which would have Parliament to be omnipotent, though it +ought not to be so unless it could at the same time be omniscient) they +might have gone on extending their Western Empire, adding Province to +Province, as far as the South Sea. + + It has long appeared to me [he said in his _Tract + relative to the Affair of Hutchinson's Letters_], that + the only true British Politicks were those which aim'd + at the Good of the _Whole British Empire_, not that + which sought the Advantage of _one Part_ in the + Disadvantage of the others; therefore all Measures of + procuring Gain to the Mother Country arising from Loss + to her Colonies, and all of Gain to the Colonies + arising from or occasioning Loss to Britain, especially + where the Gain was small and the Loss great, every + Abridgment of the Power of the Mother Country, where + that Power was not prejudicial to the Liberties of the + Colonists, and every Diminution of the Privileges of + the Colonists, where they were not prejudicial to the + Welfare of the Mo. Country, I, in my own Mind, + condemned as improper, partial, unjust, and + mischievous; tending to create Dissensions, and weaken + that Union, on which the Strength, Solidity, and + Duration of the Empire greatly depended; and I opposed, + as far as my little Powers went, all Proceedings, + either here or in America, that in my Opinion had such + Tendency. + +But in no words of Franklin is his inspiring idea of British unity more +strikingly expressed than in one of his letters to Lord Howe during the +Revolutionary War. + + Long did I endeavour, with unfeigned and unwearied Zeal + [was his touching language] to preserve from breaking + that fine and noble China Vase, the British Empire; for + I knew, that, being once broken, the separate Parts + could not retain even their Shares of the Strength and + Value that existed in the Whole, and that a perfect + Reunion of those Parts could scarce ever be hoped for. + Your Lordship may possibly remember the tears of Joy + that wet my Cheek, when, at your good Sister's in + London, you once gave me Expectations that a + Reconciliation might soon take place. + +That there was only one way in which the fair vase upon which his eye +lingered so fondly and proudly could for certainty be preserved from +irreparable ruin, namely, by admitting the colonies to representation in +the British Parliament, Franklin saw with perfect clearness. Repeatedly the +thought of such a union emerges from his correspondence only to be +dismissed as impracticable. As far back as 1766, he wrote from London to +Cadwallader Evans these pregnant words: + + My private opinion concerning a union in Parliament + between the two countries is, that it would be best for + the whole. But I think it will never be done. For + though I believe, that, if we had no more + representatives than Scotland has, we should be + sufficiently strong in the House to prevent, as they do + for Scotland, anything ever passing to our + disadvantage; yet we are not able at present to furnish + and maintain such a number, and, when we are more able, + we shall be less willing than we are now. The + Parliament here do at present think too highly of + themselves to admit representatives from us, if we + should ask it; and, when they will be desirous of + granting it, we shall think too highly of ourselves to + accept of it. It would certainly contribute to the + strength of the whole, if Ireland and all the dominions + were united and consolidated under one common council + for general purposes, each retaining its particular + council or parliament for its domestic concerns. But + this should have been more early provided for. In the + infancy of our foreign establishments it was neglected, + or was not thought of. And now the affair is nearly in + the situation of Friar Bacon's project of making a + brazen wall round England for its eternal security. His + servant, Friar Bungey, slept while the brazen head, + which was to dictate how it might be done, said _Time + is_, and _Time was_. He only waked to hear it say, + _Time is past_. An explosion followed, that tumbled + their house about the conjuror's ears. + +In a subsequent letter to his son in 1768, Franklin again indulges the same +day dream, and again reaches the conclusion that such a union would be the +best for the whole, and that, though particular parts might find particular +disadvantages in it, they would find greater advantages in the security +arising to every part from the increased strength of the whole. But such a +union, he concluded, was not likely to take place, while the nature of the +existing relation was so little understood on both sides of the water, and +sentiments concerning it remained so widely different. + +Nothing, therefore, remained for Franklin to do except to fall back upon +this relation and to make the best of it, to insist that the only +constitutional tie between England and the Colonies was the King, and that +Parliament had no more right to tax America than to tax Hanover, though the +legislative assemblies of the colonies would always be ready in the future +as they had been in the past to honor the requisitions for pecuniary aids +made upon them by the King, through his Secretary of State; to combat the +political and economic dogmas and the national prejudices which stood in +the way of the full recognition by England of the fact that her true +interest was to be found in the liberal treatment of the Colonies; to warn +the Colonies that their connection with England was attended with too many +obligations and advantages to be hastily or prematurely forfeited by rash +resentments, so long as there was any definite prospect of their appeal to +English self-interest and good-feeling not proving in vain; and finally to +couple the warning with the suggestion that they should unceasingly keep up +the assertion of their just rights, and be prepared, all else failing, to +maintain them with an unabated military spirit. It was not to be expected +of a man so conservative and constant in nature, and bound to England by so +many strong and endearing associations, that he should wage a solitary +combat for American rights on English soil before he or any man had reason +to know how bitterly the Stamp Act would be returned upon the head of +Parliament by America, but never, after the temper of his countrymen in +regard to it, was made manifest to him, were his elbows again out of touch +with those of his compatriots in America. To their assistance and to the +assistance as well of the great body of wise and generous Englishmen, who +loved liberty too much at home to begrudge it to Englishmen in America, he +brought his every resource, his scientific fame, his social gifts, his +personal popularity, his knowledge of the world and the levers by which it +is moved, the sane, searching mind, too full of light for bigotry, +superstition, or confusion, the pen that enlisted satirical point as +readily as grave dissertation in the service of instruction. It cannot be +doubted that his exertions should be reckoned among the potent influences +that secured the repeal of the Stamp Act. To Charles Thomson he wrote that +he had reprinted everything from America that he thought might help their +common cause. His examination before the House of Commons was published and +had a great run. "You guessed aright," he wrote to Lord Kames with regard +to the repeal, "in supposing that I would not be a _mute in that play_. I +was extremely busy, attending Members of both Houses, informing, +explaining, consulting, disputing, in a continual hurry from morning to +night, till the affair was happily ended." + +Some years after the repeal of the Stamp Act, he wrote to Jane Mecom that, +at the time of the repeal, the British Ministry were ready to hug him for +the assistance that he had afforded them in bringing it about. From the +time of the repeal until he returned to America in 1775, his one absorbing +object was to create a better understanding between England and her +colonies, and to avert the possibility of war between them. Among the +things with which he had to contend in accomplishing his aims was the +haughty spirit in which the English people were disposed to look down upon +the colonists, and to resent any manifestation of independence upon their +part as insolent. It was this spirit which made him feel that the assent of +England would never be obtained to the representation of America in +Parliament. + + I am fully persuaded with you [he wrote to Lord Kames], + that a _Consolidating Union_, by a fair and equal + representation of all the parts of this Empire in + Parliament, is the only firm basis on which its + political grandeur and prosperity can be founded. + Ireland once wished it, but now rejects it. The time + has been, when the colonies might have been pleased + with it; they are now _indifferent_ about it; and if it + is much longer delayed, they too will _refuse it_. But + the pride of this people can not bear the thought of + it, and therefore it will be delayed. Every man in + England seems to consider himself as a piece of a + sovereign over America; seems to jostle himself into + the throne with the King, and talks of _our subjects in + the Colonies_. + +This was the sentiment of England in general. In the guard-room and +barracks, it assumed at times the grosser form of such contempt as that +which led General Clarke to believe as we have seen that the emasculation +of all the male Americans would be little more than a holiday task for a +handful of British grenadiers. Along with this haughty spirit went a crass +ignorance of America and Americans which Franklin despaired of ever +enlightening except by good-natured ridicule. An illustration of the manner +in which he employed this agency is found in his letter to the Editor of a +Newspaper. It had been claimed, he said, that factories in America were +impossible because American sheep had but little wool, and the dearness of +American labor rendered the profitable working of iron and other materials, +except in some few coarse instances, impracticable. + + Dear Sir [was his reply], do not let us suffer + ourselves to be amus'd with such groundless Objections. + The very Tails of the American Sheep are so laden with + Wooll, that each has a little Car or Waggon on four + little Wheels, to support & keep it from trailing on + the Ground. Would they caulk their Ships, would they + fill their Beds, would they even litter their Horses + with Wooll, if it were not both plenty and cheap? And + what signifies Dearness of Labour, when an English + shilling passes for five and Twenty? Their engaging 300 + Silk Throwsters here in one Week, for New York, was + treated as a Fable, because, forsooth, they have "no + Silk there to throw." Those, who made this Objection, + perhaps did not know, that at the same time the Agents + from the King of Spain were at Quebec to contract for + 1000 Pieces of Cannon to be made there for the + Fortification of Mexico, and at New York engaging the + annual Supply of woven Floor-Carpets for their West + India Houses, other Agents from the Emperor of China + were at Boston treating about an Exchange of raw Silk + for Wooll, to be carried in Chinese Junks through the + Straits of Magellan. + +Another thing, with which Franklin had to contend, was the +misrepresentations that the colonial governors were constantly making about +American conditions. These misrepresentations were in keeping with the +unworthy character of some of them and with the transitory relation that +almost all of them bore to the Colonies, of which they were the executives. +What the Americans truly thought of them is pointedly expressed in +Franklin's _Causes of the American Discontents_. + + They say then as to Governors [he declared], that they + are not like Princes whose posterity have an + inheritance in the Government of a nation, and + therefore an interest in its prosperity; they are + generally strangers to the Provinces they are sent to + govern, have no estate, natural connexion, or relation + there, to give them an affection for the country; that + they come only to make money as fast as they can; are + sometimes men of vicious characters and broken + fortunes, sent by a Minister merely to get them out of + the way; that as they intend staying in the country no + longer than their government continues, and purpose to + leave no family behind them, they are apt to be + regardless of the goodwill of the people, and care not + what is said or thought of them after they are gone. + +That such men were biased and untrustworthy witnesses touching American +conditions goes without saying, but, when discontent became deeply +implanted in the breasts of the colonists, their partisan and perverted +reports to the English Government as to the state of America did much to +mislead their masters. The burden of these reports as a rule was that the +disaffected were few in numbers and persons of little consequence, that +the colonists of property and social standing were satisfied, and inclined +to submit to Parliamentary taxation, that it was impossible to establish +manufacturing industries in America, and that, if Parliament would only +steadily persist in the exercise of its legislative authority over America, +the non-importation agreements and other defensive measures adopted by its +people would be abandoned. + +But the most intractable of all the obstacles with which Franklin had to +contend was the policy of commercial and industrial restriction, partly the +result of economic purblindness, peculiar to the time, and partly the +result of sheer selfishness, which England relentlessly pursued in her +relations to the colonies. Every suggestion that this policy should be +relaxed was met by its more extreme champions, such as George Grenville, +with the statement that the Acts of Navigation were the very Palladium of +England. On no account were the Colonies to be allowed to import wine, oil +and fruit directly from Spain and Portugal, or to even import iron directly +from foreign countries. Enlarged as was the understanding of Lord Chatham +himself, it could not tolerate the thought that America should be permitted +to convert any form of crude material into manufactured products. Every hat +made in America, every shipload of emigrants that left the shores of +England for America, was jealously regarded as signifying so much pecuniary +loss to England. The colonists were to be mere _adscripti glebæ_, mere +tillers of the American soil for the purpose of wringing from it the price +of the manufactured commodities, with which they were to be exclusively +supplied by the factories and shops of the mother country. The idea that, +in any other sense, the expanding numbers and wealth of America could inure +to the benefit of England, was one that seemed to be wholly foreign to its +consciousness. To this Little England Franklin steadfastly opposed his +conception of an Imperial England, based upon the freedom of all its parts +to contribute to the wealth and importance of the whole by the full +enjoyment of all their peculiar natural gifts and advantages. + + No one can more sincerely rejoice than I do [he wrote + to Lord Kames in 1760], on the reduction of Canada; and + this is not merely as I am a colonist, but as I am a + Briton. I have long been of opinion, that the + _foundations of the future grandeur and stability of + the British Empire lie in America_; and though, like + other foundations, they are low and little seen, they + are, nevertheless, broad and strong enough to support + the greatest political structure human wisdom ever yet + erected. + +These words, splendid as was the vision by which they were illumined, were +but the utterance in another form of the thought that he had expressed nine +years before in America in his essay on the _Increase of Mankind_. Speaking +of the population of the colonies at that time he said: + + This Million doubling, suppose but once in 25 years, + will, in another Century, be more than the People of + _England_, and the greatest Number of _Englishmen_ will + be on this Side the Water. What an Accession of Power + to the _British Empire_ by Sea as well as Land! What + Increase of Trade and Navigation! What Numbers of Ships + and Seamen! We have been here but little more than 100 + years, and yet the Force of our Privateers in the late + War, united, was greater, both in Men and Guns, than + that of the whole _British_ Navy in Queen _Elizabeth's_ + time. + +Indeed so fully possessed was he even as late as 1771 with the federative +spirit, which has brought recruits from Canada and Australia to the side of +England in recent wars that, after urging upon Thomas Cushing the +importance of a well-disciplined militia being maintained by +Massachusetts, for her protection against invasion by a foreign foe, he +added, "And what a Glory would it be for us to send, on any trying +Occasion, ready and effectual Aid to our Mother Country!" It is only by +reading such words as these that we can begin to divine what the divulsion +of England and America has really meant to the vast host of human beings +throughout the world who speak the English tongue. + +To all the shallow sophistries or sottish errors, that tended to falsify +his glorious dream of world-wide British unity, Franklin presented a +merciless intellect. With regard to the intention of Parliament to tax the +colonies, he had these pointed words to say in a letter to Peter Collinson +in 1764: "What we get above a Subsistence we lay out with you for your +Manufactures. + +"Therefore what you get from us in Taxes you must lose in Trade. The Cat +can yield but her skin." + +Even more acute was his letter to the _Public Advertiser_ on a proposed Act +to prevent emigration from England. Such an Act, he declared, was +unnecessary, impracticable, impolitic and unjust. What is more, with an +insight into the laws governing population, superior to that of any man of +his time, he made his assertions good. To illustrate this claim in part, we +need go no further than what he had to say about the necessity of the Act. + + As long as the new situation shall be _far_ preferable + to the old [he said], the emigration may possibly + continue. But when many of those, who at home + interfered with others of the same rank (in the + competition for farms, shops, business, offices, and + other means of subsistence), are gradually withdrawn, + the inconvenience of that competition ceases; the + number remaining no longer half starve each other; they + find they can now subsist comfortably, and though + perhaps not quite so well as those who have left them, + yet, the inbred attachment to a native country is + sufficient to overbalance a moderate difference; and + thus the emigration ceases naturally. The waters of + the ocean may move in currents from one quarter of the + globe to another, as they happen in some places to be + accumulated, and in others diminished; but no law, + beyond the law of gravity, is necessary to prevent + their abandoning any coast entirely. Thus the different + degrees of happiness of different countries and + situations find, or rather make, their level by the + flowing of people from one to another; and where that + level is once found, the removals cease. Add to this, + that even a real deficiency of people in any country, + occasioned by a wasting war or pestilence, is speedily + supplied by earlier and more prolific marriages, + encouraged by the greater facility of obtaining the + means of subsistence. So that a country half + depopulated would soon be repeopled, till the means of + subsistence were equalled by the population. All + increase beyond that point must perish, or flow off + into more favourable situations. Such overflowings + there have been of mankind in all ages, or we should + not now have had so many nations. But to apprehend + absolute depopulation from that cause, and call for a + law to prevent it, is calling for a law to stop the + Thames, lest its waters, by what leave it daily at + Gravesend, should be quite exhausted. + +Twenty-three years before he had stated the same truths more sententiously +in his essay on the _Increase of Mankind_. + + In fine [he said in that essay] a Nation well regulated + is like a Polypus; take away a Limb, its Place is soon + supply'd; cut it in two, and each deficient Part shall + speedily grow out of the Part remaining. Thus if you + have Room and Subsistence enough, as you may by + dividing, make ten Polypes out of one, you may of one + make ten Nations, equally populous and powerful; or + rather increase a Nation ten fold in Numbers and + Strength. + +Franklin clearly saw that, with the increase of population in the colonies, +the demand for British manufactures would increase _pari passu_, and that, +with the increased demand for them, the population of Great Britain would +increase, perhaps, tenfold. Much as he made of the economic conditions that +tended to give a purely agricultural direction to the energies of America, +he laughed to scorn the idea that America would always remain in a state of +industrial subjection to England. + + Only consider _the rate of our Increase_ [he wrote to + Peter Collinson, after stating that it was folly to + expect that America would always be supplied with cloth + by England] and tell me if you can increase your Wooll + in that Proportion, and where, in your little Island + you can feed the Sheep. Nature has put Bounds to your + Abilities, tho' none to your Desires. Britain would, if + she could, manufacture & trade for all the World; + England for all Britain;--London for all England;--and + every Londoner for all London. So selfish is the human + Mind! But 'tis well there is One above that rules these + Matters with a more equal Hand. + +The agency that Franklin held for Pennsylvania in the first instance, and +the agencies that he afterwards held for Massachusetts, New Jersey and +Georgia, too, afforded him a solid standing for influencing public opinion +both in England and America. He was actually in England, and, at the same +time, in incessant correspondence with the popular leaders in America. With +the beginning of the agitation for the repeal of the Stamp Act he entered +upon a course of political activity which added greatly, in another form, +to the reputation already acquired by him as a man of science. For his +services in securing the repeal, including the flood of light that his +answers, when examined before the House of Commons, shed upon the points at +issue between the two countries, he was repaid by the English Ministry with +attentions which he describes by a term as strong as "caress." Even when +the dust of the conflict had thickened, and popular sentiment in England +had ranged itself more and more on the side of the King and Parliament, +his advice was still eagerly sought by Chatham, Camden, Shelburne and Burke +and other liberal and sagacious English statesmen, when they were vainly +striving in opposition to restore sanity to the distracted counsels that +were menacing the security of the Empire.[20] Those must have been proud +moments for Franklin, when the elder Pitt, whom he had come to regard in +the earlier stages of his maturer life in England as an "inaccessible," +received him as an honored guest under his roof at Hayes, or conferred with +him at No. 7 Craven Street, or delivered him to the doorkeepers in the +House of Lords, saying aloud, "This is Dr. Franklin, whom I would have +admitted into the House." There have been few men who might not have envied +the privilege of intimate communion with a man not greater, when he was +making his country the mistress of the world, than, when decrepit, and in a +hopeless minority, he rose in the House of Lords to plead with a voice, +inspired not only by his own matchless eloquence but by all that was best +in the history and temper of England for the removal of His Majesty's +troops from the town of Boston. On the other side of the Atlantic, too, as +the final catastrophe drew nearer, Franklin acquired a position, as the +champion of the Colonies, which led Governor Hutchinson of Massachusetts to +say of the memorable report, made by a committee to the town meeting, held +in Boston on November 20, 1772, that "although at its first appearance it +was considered as their own work, yet they had little more to do than to +make the necessary alterations in the arrangement of materials prepared for +them by their great director in England, whose counsels they obeyed, and in +whose wisdom and dexterity they had an implicit faith." + +And with entire truth it can be said that, until war became inevitable, +Franklin used his influence in both countries with the unwavering purpose +of promoting the best interests of both. The representation of America in +Parliament at that time he saw was impracticable, and it is hard to +believe, though the imbecility of a government without a sanction had not +yet been forced upon his attention by the Articles of Confederation, that +so practical a man could have had much faith in the steady efficacy of mere +requisitions for aids by the Crown on the colonial assemblies. But, within +the limits set him by the insurmountable barriers of the hour, it can not +be doubted, bold as such an assertion may be, that the wisest thing that +both England and the Colonies could have done, if such an idea is +conceivable, would have been to leave the controversy between them to his +sole arbitration. The most striking tribute that can be paid to the wisdom +and open-mindedness of Franklin is to say that, if this had been done, an +accommodation would unquestionably have been reached with due regard to the +honor, dignity and essential interests of both countries. His attitude in +England was that of a loyal friend to both parties to the controversy, who, +as he viewed it, had no cause for disagreement that a temperate and +sensible man would not know how to readily remove. To the British public he +addressed with numerous variations the following arguments: Notwithstanding +the rapid increase of population in America, its area was so vast, and +contained so much vacant land, that even such artisans as it had soon +drifted into the possession and cultivation of land. The danger, therefore, +of industrial competition between the two countries was very remote. The +people of America, however, would multiply so rapidly that, in the course +of a brief time, the demand for manufactures would increase to such an +extent that Great Britain would be powerless alone to supply it. He had +satisfied himself by an inspection of the cloth factories in Yorkshire +that, with a population doubling as did that of America every twenty-five +years, Great Britain would in the future be unable to keep the Americans +clothed. It was not right that the interests of a particular class of +British merchants, tradesmen or artificers should outweigh those of all the +King's subjects in the Colonies. Iron was to be found everywhere in +America, and beaver furs were the natural productions of that country; +hats, nails and steel were wanted there as well as in England. It was of no +importance to the common welfare of the empire whether a subject of the +King got his living by making hats on one or the other side of the water, +whether he grew rich on the Thames or the Ohio, in Edinburgh or Dublin. Yet +the hatters of England had obtained an act in their own favor, restraining +that manufacture in America in order to oblige the Americans to send their +beaver to England to be manufactured, and to purchase back the hats loaded +with the charges of a double transportation. In the same manner, had a few +nail-makers and a still smaller body of steel-makers (perhaps there were +not a half-dozen of these in England) been able to totally forbid by an Act +of Parliament the erecting of slitting mills or steel-furnaces in America. +All money made by America in trade, or derived by it from fisheries, the +produce of the soil or commerce, finally centred in England; yet, though +America was drained of all its specie in the purchase of English goods, +often mere luxuries and superfluities, she was not even allowed to issue +paper money, however carefully safeguarded, to take its place. The idea +that the numerous and separate colonies might become dangerous to the +mother country was visionary. They were so jealous of each other that they +had been wholly unable to agree upon a union for their common defence or to +unite in requesting the mother country to establish one for them. The truth +was that they loved England much more than they loved each other. There +remained among them so much respect, veneration and affection for Britain, +that, if cultivated prudently, with kind usage, and tenderness for their +privileges, they might be easily governed still for ages, without force, or +any considerable expense. Parliament had no constitutional right to levy a +direct tax of any kind on America. The King was the only bond between +America and Great Britain. In the beginning, no claim had been made by +Parliament of a right to even regulate American commerce, but the power had +long been exercised by it without any objection on the part of the +colonies, and could, at any rate, be reasonably defended on the ground that +Great Britain was put to a great expense in policing the seas over which +American commerce moved. If England felt that she could not rely upon the +voluntary grants of America, to defray the charges imposed upon her by +America, then the logical and proper thing to do before she levied direct +taxes upon America was to provide for the representation of the Colonies in +Parliament. Until that was done, if it was practicable to do it, she should +confine herself to the old constitutional practice of requisitions for +pecuniary aid, issued by the Secretary of State, at the instance of the +Crown, to the Legislative Assemblies of America. These requisitions of a +gracious King had been freely honored in the past. Indeed, the pecuniary +burden of the wars, which had been carried on in America, though they were +not of her kindling, had been borne by America in a larger proportion to +her means than England. But to impose a stamp or tea duty upon America by +Act of Parliament was simple madness. No taxes of that sort would ever be +collected in America except such as were stained with blood. If Parliament, +in which America was not represented, had the right to take from her a +penny in a pound, what was there to hinder it from calling, whenever it +pleased, for the other nineteen shillings and eleven pence? The only +result of a continued attempt to tax America would be the complete loss of +her respect and affection, and all the political and commercial advantages +that accompanied them. It was a mistake to heed the statements of the +Colonial Governors as to the limited extent of popular disaffection in +America and the inability of the Colonies to dispense with English +manufactures. Their dependence was such as to render them more eager to +conciliate court than colonial favor. It was also a mistake to suppose that +America could not either make or forego any articles whatsoever that she +was in the habit of buying from England. Men would tax themselves as +heavily to gratify their resentment as their pride. The Americans had +resolved to wear no more mourning, and it was now totally out of fashion +with near two millions of people. They had resolved to eat no more lamb, +and not a joint of lamb had since been seen on any of their tables, but the +lambs themselves were all alive with the prettiest of fleeces on their +backs imaginable. Look, too, at the pitiful sum of eighty pounds which was +all that the odious tea duty banned by America had produced in a year to +defray the expense of some hundreds of thousands of pounds incurred by +England in maintaining armed ships and soldiers to support the innumerable +officeholders charged with the duty of enforcing the tax. + +The argument addressed by Franklin to America was equally earnest. The +protection that England could afford her, the office of umpire that England +could perform for her, in case of disputes between the Colonies, so that +they could go on without interruption with their improvements, and increase +their numbers, were the advantages that America enjoyed in her connection +with England. + + By the Exercise of prudent Moderation on her part, + mix'd with a little Kindness [Franklin wrote to Thomas + Cushing], and by a decent Behaviour on ours, excusing + where we can excuse from a Consideration of + Circumstances, and bearing a little with the + Infirmities of her Government, as we would with those + of an aged Parent,[21] tho' firmly asserting our + Privileges, and declaring that we mean at a proper time + to vindicate them, this advantageous Union may still be + long continued. We wish it, and we may endeavour it; + but God will order it as to His Wisdom shall seem most + suitable. The Friends of Liberty here, wish we may long + preserve it on our side the Water, that they may find + it there if adverse Events should destroy it here. They + are therefore anxious and afraid, lest we should hazard + it by premature Attempts in its favour. They think we + may risque much by violent Measures and that the Risque + is unnecessary, since a little Time must infallibly + bring us all we demand or desire, and bring it us in + Peace and Safety. I do not presume to advise. There are + many wiser men among you, and I hope you will be + directed by a still superior Wisdom. + +Every personal difference Franklin contended did not justify a quarrel nor +did every act of oppression on the part of the mother country justify a +war. The policy, which he laid down for the Colonies, was to exercise +patience and forbearance, and to look to political changes in England and +their own rapidly increasing numbers and wealth for the ultimate redress of +their grievances, but, in the meantime, to reaffirm fearlessly their +constitutional rights on every proper occasion. This policy is again and +again recommended in his letters to his friends and political +correspondents over-sea. Even before the Stamp Act was actually repealed, +he wrote to Charles Thomson expressing the hope that, when that happened, +the behavior of America would be so prudent, decent and grateful that their +friends in England would have no reason to be ashamed, and their enemies in +England, who had predicted that Parliamentary indulgence would only make +them more insolent and ungovernable, would find themselves, and be found, +false prophets. After the repeal of the Stamp Act, in a letter to Galloway, +he expressed deep regret that the English merchants, who had helped to +secure that result, and to communicate the knowledge of it, at their +expense to America, should feel that the Americans had proved themselves +ingrates, and he accordingly said that he hoped that some decent +acknowledgments or thanks would be sent to these merchants by the colonial +assemblies. When the idea of taxing America was subsequently revived, he +wrote to the same correspondent that he knew not what to advise, but that +they should all do their endeavors on both sides the water to lessen the +present unpopularity of the American cause, conciliate the affections of +the British towards them, increase by all possible means the number of +their friends, and be careful not to weaken their hands, and strengthen +their enemies, by rash proceedings on their side; the mischiefs of which +were inconceivable. In a letter to the printer of the _Gazetteer_, signed +"New England," he said: "I only hate calumniators and boutefeus on either +side the water, who would for the little dirty purposes of faction, set +brother against brother, turn friends into mortal enemies, and ruin an +empire by dividing it." In a letter to Cadwallader Evans, in 1768, he even +approved the idea that America should manufacture only such things as +England neglected. + +These are but scant gleanings from the numerous letters in which, down to +the very last, Franklin unweariedly repeated his counsels of self-restraint +to his fellow-countrymen. Accompanying them was every word of good cheer +that he thought might tend to make this self-restraint easier. Several +times he assured his American correspondents that, in the debate with the +mother country, America had the sympathy of all Europe. For a long time, he +endeavored to allay the resentment of his countrymen, under the sting of +parliamentary injustice, by voicing the delusion that the King did not +share the sentiments of the corrupt legislature which, as a matter of fact, +he was all the time corrupting for the purpose of fostering such +sentiments. Every indication of a favorable disposition towards the +Colonies upon the part of the English People, during the alternations of +anxiety and confidence that his mind underwent with the rise and fall of +English ministries, friendly or unfriendly to America, was promptly +observed by him and reported to America. At times, it is plain enough that +he thought a war it would be; yet as late as 1775, when he believed that +the adverse ministry of that time was tottering, his sanguine nature +reached the conclusion in a letter to James Bowdoin that the redoubled +clamor of the trading, manufacturing and Whig interests in England would +infallibly overthrow all the enemies of America, and produce an +acknowledgment of her rights and satisfaction for her injuries. Parliament +rarely gave him any occasion to speak of it except in terms of mingled +amazement and indignation; but it is agreeable to remember that, in a +letter in 1774 to Jane Mecom, he made grateful mention of "the generous and +noble friends of America" in both houses, whose names, dear to the highest +traditions of human genius and public spirit, should never be forgotten in +any movement to reintegrate in some form the broken fragments of the china +vase in which Franklin saw a symbol of the unity of the British Empire. + +Accompanying Franklin's counsels of patience, however, was also an +unceasing warning to America not to alter for a moment her posture of +resistance and protest. "If under all the Insults and Oppressions you are +now exposed to," he told Dr. Cooper, "you can prudently, as you have lately +done, continue quiet, avoiding Tumults, but still resolutely keeping up +your Claim and asserting your Rights, you will finally establish them, and +this military Cloud that now blusters over you will pass away, and do no +more Harm than a Summer Thunder Shower." "The Colonies," he wrote +subsequently to Robert Morris and Thomas Leach, "have Adversaries enow to +their common Privileges: They should endeavour to agree among themselves, +and avoid everything that may make ill-Blood and promote Divisions, which +must weaken them in their common Defence." To Thomas Cushing he wrote that +America should continue from time to time to assert its rights in +occasional solemn resolves and other public acts, never yielding them up, +and avoiding even the slightest expressions that seemed confirmatory of the +claim that had been set up against them. As the end of it all became more +and more obvious, his note of warning assumed an additional significance. +In a letter to Thomas Cushing in 1773, he wrote: + + But our great Security lies, I think, in our growing + Strength, both in Numbers and Wealth; that creates an + increasing Ability of assisting this Nation in its + Wars, which will make us more respectable, our + Friendship more valued, and our Enmity feared; thence + it will soon be thought proper to treat us not with + Justice only, but with Kindness, and thence we may + expect in a few Years a total Change of Measures with + regard to us; unless, by a Neglect of military + Discipline, we should lose all martial Spirit, and our + Western People become as tame as those in the Eastern + Dominions of Britain, when we may expect the same + Oppressions; for there is much Truth in the Italian + saying, _Make yourselves Sheep_, _and the Wolves will + eat you_. + +Indeed the almost miraculous way in which the population and wealth of +America were increasing from year to year was one of the facts which +entered most deeply into Franklin's calculation of the resources upon which +she could rely not for the purpose of breaking away from the British +connection but for the purpose of preventing it from being abused by +England. No one saw more clearly than he that the day would come when some +descendant, such as Gladstone, of one of his British contemporaries might +well apostrophize America as a daughter that, at no very distant time, +would, whether fairer or less fair, be unquestionably stronger than the +mother.[22] To Thomas Cushing he wrote in 1773 that the longer England +delayed the accommodation, which finally for her own sake she must obtain, +the worse terms she might expect, since the inequality of power and +importance that then subsisted between her and America was daily +diminishing; while the latter's sense of her own rights and of England's +injustice was continually increasing. + +Optimistic on the whole, however, as was Franklin's outlook during the +interval of political strife which preceded the American Revolution, +intently as he watched every ebb and flow of English feeling, while this +period lasted, it is manifest that in its later stages he realized that the +currents upon which he was being borne were steadily moving towards the +jaws of the maelstrom. This is apparent enough in his perspicacious letter +of May 15, 1771, to the Committee of Correspondence in Massachusetts. + + I think one may clearly see, in the system of customs + to be exacted in America by act of Parliament, the + seeds sown of a total disunion of the two countries, + though, as yet, that event may be at a considerable + distance. The course and natural progress seems to be, + first, the appointment of needy men as officers, for + others do not care to leave England; then, their + necessities make them rapacious, their office makes + them proud and insolent, their insolence and rapacity + make them odious, and, being conscious that they are + hated, they become malicious; their malice urges them + to a continual abuse of the inhabitants in their + letters to administration, representing them as + disaffected and rebellious, and (to encourage the use + of severity), as weak, divided, timid, and cowardly. + Government believes all; thinks it necessary to support + and countenance its officers; their quarreling with the + people is deemed a mark and consequence of their + fidelity; they are therefore more highly rewarded, and + this makes their conduct still more insolent and + provoking. + + The resentment of the people will, at times and on + particular incidents, burst into outrages and violence + upon such officers, and this naturally draws down + severity and acts of further oppression from hence. The + more the people are dissatisfied, the more rigor will + be thought necessary; severe punishments will be + inflicted to terrify; rights and privileges will be + abolished; greater force will then be required to + secure execution and submission; the expense will + become enormous; it will then be thought proper, by + fresh exactions, to make the people defray it; thence, + the British nation and government will become odious, + the subjection to it will be deemed no longer + tolerable; war ensues, and the bloody struggle will end + in absolute slavery to America, or ruin to Britain by + the loss of her colonies; the latter most probable, + from America's growing strength and magnitude. + + But, as the whole empire must, in either case, be + greatly weakened, I cannot but wish to see much + patience and the utmost discretion in our general + conduct, that the fatal period may be postponed, and + that, whenever this catastrophe shall happen, it may + appear to all mankind that the fault has not been ours. + +Franklin's written comments upon the American controversy between the +passage of the Stamp Act and his return to America in 1775 are usually +marked by a sobriety and dignity of expression worthy of their wisdom. It +is only at times that the strong character, habitually held in leash by +innate prudence and severely disciplined self-control, breaks out into +impatience. Naturally enough now and then he has a word of scorn for the +graceless venality which made Westminster almost as much a market as +Smithfield, and was, after all, the real thing that rendered England deaf +to the warning "Time is" of Friar Bacon's brazen mouth-piece. + + Many think the new Parliament will be for reversing the + late proceedings [he wrote to Galloway in 1774], but + that depends on the Court, on which every Parliament + seems to be dependent; so much so, that I begin to + think a Parliament here of little Use to the People: + For since a Parliament is always to do as a ministry + would have it, why should we not be govern'd by the + Ministry in the first Instance? They could afford to + govern us cheaper, the Parliament being a very + expensive Machine, that requires a vast deal of oiling + and greasing at the People's Charge; for they finally + pay all the enormous Salaries of Places, the Pensions, + and the Bribes, now by Custom become necessary to + induce the Members to vote according to their + Consciences. + +Franklin would have been more than human if he had not had a resentful word +to say too, when, as the result of the refusal of the Americans to drink +any tea, except such as was smuggled into America, free of the detested +duty, by the commercial rivals of England, the East India Company could no +longer meet its debts, let alone pay dividends and the annuity of four +hundred thousand pounds, payable by it to the British Government, and +bankruptcy was following bankruptcy like a series of falling bricks, and +thousands of Spitalfield and Manchester weavers were starving, or +subsisting upon charity. "Blessed Effects of Pride, Pique, and Passion in +Government, which should have no Passions," was the caustic observation of +Franklin in one of his letters to his son. Bitterness welled up again in +his throat when, after he had been bayed by the Privy Council, and +dismissed from his office, a special instruction was issued to the Governor +of Massachusetts not to sign any warrant on the Treasury for the purpose of +paying him any salary as the agent of Massachusetts or reimbursing him for +any expenses incurred on her behalf. + + The Injustice [he said in his _Tract Relative to the + Affair of Hutchinson's Letters_] of thus depriving the + People there of the Use of their own Money, to pay an + Agent acting in their Defence, while the Governor, with + a large Salary out of the Money extorted from them by + Act of Parliament, was enabled to pay plentifully + Maudit and Wedderburn to abuse and defame them and + their Agent, is so evident as to need no Comment. But + this they call GOVERNMENT! + +Indecent, however, as was the treatment accorded by the Privy Council to +the man, who had striven so loyally, so zealously and so wisely to promote +the greatness and glory of England, it hardly conveyed a ruder shock to his +mind than that which it received later when he saw the plan for the +settlement of the American Controversy drafted by Lord Chatham rejected by +the House of Lords, with as much contempt he told Charles Thomson, "as they +could have shown to a Ballad offered by a drunken Porter." + + To hear so many of these _Hereditary_ Legislators [he + said in his _Account of Negotiations in London_], + declaiming so vehemently against, not the Adopting + merely, but even the _Consideration_ of a Proposal so + important in its Nature, offered by a Person of so + weighty a Character, one of the first Statesmen of the + Age, who had taken up this Country when in the lowest + Despondency, and conducted it to Victory and Glory, + thro' a War with two of the mightiest Kingdoms in + Europe; to hear them censuring his Plan, not only for + their own Misunderstandings of what was in it, but for + their Imaginations of what was not in it, which they + would not give themselves an Opportunity of rectifying + by a second Reading; to perceive the total Ignorance of + the Subject in some, the Prejudice and Passion of + others, and the wilful Perversion of Plain Truth in + several of the Ministers; and upon the whole to see it + so ignominiously rejected by so great a Majority, and + so hastily too, in Breach of all Decency, and prudent + Regard to the Character and Dignity of their Body, as a + third Part of the National Legislature, gave me an + exceeding mean Opinion of their Abilities, and made + their Claim of Sovereignty over three Millions of + Virtuous, sensible People in America seem the greatest + of Absurdities, since they appear'd to have scarce + Discretion enough to govern a Herd of Swine. + _Hereditary Legislators_! thought I. There would be + more Propriety, because less Hazard of Mischief, in + having (as in some University of Germany) _Hereditary + Professors of Mathematicks_. + + Yet this is the Government [Franklin declared in the + letter to Charles Thomson, in which he used the simile + of the ballad and the drunken porter, and also referred + to equally rash conduct upon the part of the House of + Commons], by whose Supreme Authority, we are to have + our Throats cut, if we do not acknowledge, and whose + dictates we are implicitly to obey, while their conduct + hardly entitles them to Common Respect. + +But it was only after he had been shamelessly and publicly proscribed, +under circumstances which gave him good reason to believe that he was but +the vicarious victim of a People unfeelingly doomed to the cruel +alternatives of fratricidal resistance or vassalage, that he gave way, +though still engaged in a last effort to stave off the evil day of +separation, to such reproachful or denunciatory utterances as these. +Indeed, as it is a satisfaction to a stupid man to know that Homer +sometimes nodded, and to a vicious man to know that the character of +Washington is supposed to have been at last successfully fly-specked by +some petty scandal-monger, so it ought to be a relief to a hasty man to +know that Franklin was once on the point of succumbing entirely to a sudden +flaw of anger. Goaded beyond endurance by the reflections, which he had +just heard in the House of Lords on everything American, including American +courage, honesty and intelligence, reflections as contemptuous, he said, as +if his countrymen were the lowest of mankind, and almost of a different +species from the English of Britain, he drew up a heated protest, as the +agent of Massachusetts, demanding from Great Britain present satisfaction +for the blockade of Boston, and stating that satisfaction for the proposed +exclusion of Massachusetts from the Newfoundland and other fisheries, if +carried into effect, would probably also some day be demanded. When he +showed the paper to his friend, Thomas Walpole, a member of the House of +Commons, Walpole, we are told by him, looked at it and him several times +alternately, as if he apprehended him to be out of his senses. However, +Franklin asked him to lay it before Lord Camden, which he undertook to do. +When it came back to Franklin, it was with a note from Walpole telling him +simply that it was thought that it might be attended with dangerous +consequences to his person, and contribute to exasperate the nation. The +caution that Franklin exhibited before permitting the protest to pass from +his possession suggests the idea that, in writing it, he was merely seeking +a safe vent for the mental ferment of the moment. It was doubtless well for +him that the paper got no further; for it is painful to relate that the +disposition was not wanting in England to construe some of his letters to +Thomas Cushing as treasonable. In a letter to Cushing, he said that he was +not conscious of any treasonable intention, but that, after the manner in +which he had recently been treated in the matter of the Hutchinson letters, +he was not to wonder if less than a small lump in his forehead was voted a +horn. Six months later, he wrote to Galloway that it was thought by many +that, if the British soldiers and the New Englanders should come to blows, +he would probably be taken up; for the ministerial people affected +everywhere to represent him as the cause of all the misunderstanding. We +know nothing better calculated to show how hopeless it is for the lamb +downstream to convince the wolf upstream that the water flowing by him was +not muddied from below than the fact that, during the debate over Lord +Chatham's conciliatory Plan, Lord Sandwich referred to Franklin as one of +the bitterest and most mischievous enemies that England had ever known. +That is to say, Franklin, the loyal Englishman who, in one of his early +papers on electricity, could not even mention the King without adding, "God +preserve him," who had shrunk in the beginning from the agitation against +the Stamp Act as little less than treason, who had deprecated the Boston +tea-party as lawless violence, and had, from first to last, condemned +mob-license in every form in America as steadfastly as tyranny in England. + +The wonder is that he should not have reached the decision sooner than he +did that there was nothing to be gained for his country by his longer +sojourn in England. His intercourse, as an American agent with Lord +Hillsborough, when Secretary of State for America and First Commissioner to +the Board of Trade, was alone enough to bring him to such a decision.[23] +As an Irishman, familiar with the repressive policy of England in Ireland, +Hillsborough could not well approve of British restrictions upon American +commerce and manufactures; but there his sympathy with America ceased. +Franklin truly said that the agents of the Colonies in England were quite +as useful to England as to the Colonies, since they had more than once by +timely advice kept the English Government from making mistakes arising out +of ignorance of special conditions peculiar to America. But this view was +not shared by Hillsborough. He insisted that no agent from Massachusetts +should be recognized in England, who was not appointed, from year to year, +by the General Court of Massachusetts by an act, to which the Governor of +that colony had given his assent. As the Governor was dependent for his +appointment upon the British Ministry, and would hardly fail to name any +one as agent, who might be selected by it, such a tenure was equivalent to +vesting the selection of the agent in Hillsborough himself, whose wishes, +when selected, the agent was not likely to oppose. Under such conditions, +an agent would be of no value to the colony, Franklin declared, and, under +such conditions, he further declared, he would not be willing himself to +hold the post. "His Character is Conceit, Wrongheadedness, Obstinacy, and +Passion." Such were the terms in which Franklin summed up the moral +attributes of Hillsborough to Dr. Cooper, after he had vainly striven for +several years to give the former some salutary conception of the importance +of ascertaining the real sentiments and wants of America. The letter, in +which these terms were employed, was accompanied by minutes of a spirited +dialogue between Franklin and Hillsborough, which almost makes us regret +that the former, among his other literary ventures, had not tested his +qualifications as a playwright. The part of Hillsborough in the colloquy +was to let Franklin fully know in language of mixed petulance and contempt +that he declined to recognize him as an agent. + + No such appointment shall be entered [he is minuted as + declaring]. When I came into the administration of + American affairs, I found them in great disorder. By + _my firmness_ they are now something mended; and, while + I have the honour to hold the seals, I shall continue + the same conduct, the same _firmness_. I think my duty + to the master I serve, and to the government of this + nation, requires it of me. If that conduct is not + approved, _they_ may take my office from me when they + please. I shall make them a bow, and thank them; I + shall resign with pleasure. That gentleman knows it, + (_pointing to Mr. Pownall_), but, while I continue in + it, I shall resolutely persevere in the same FIRMNESS. + (_Spoken with great warmth, and turning pale in his + discourse, as if he was angry at something or somebody + besides the agent, and of more consequence to + himself._) + +Then follows Franklin's reply: + + B. F. (_Reaching out his hand for the paper, which his + Lordship returned to him_). I beg your Lordship's + pardon for taking up so much of your time. It is, I + believe, of no great importance whether the appointment + is acknowledged or not, for I have not the least + conception that an agent can _at present_ be of any use + to any of the colonies. I shall therefore give your + Lordship no further trouble. (Withdrew.) + +As the dialogue discloses, Hillsborough had quite enough enemies already to +render it prudent for him to abstain from making another of a man who had +declared in the letter, with which it was enclosed, that, if there was to +be a war between them, he would do his best to defend himself, and annoy +his adversary little, regarding the story of the Earthen Pot and Brazen +Pitcher. + + One encouragement I have [Franklin said in his letter], + the knowledge, that he is not a whit better lik'd by + his Colleagues in the Ministry, than he is by me, that + he can not probably continue where he is much longer, + and that he can scarce be succeeded by anybody, who + will not like me the better for his having been at + Variance with me. + +Later, Franklin wrote to Thomas Cushing: + + This Man's Mandates have been treated with Disrespect + in America, his Letters have been criticis'd, his + Measures censur'd and despis'd; which has produced in + him a kind of settled Malice against the Colonies, + particularly ours, that would break out into greater + Violence if cooler Heads did not set some Bounds to it. + I have indeed good Reason to believe that his Conduct + is far from being approved by the King's other + Servants, and that he himself is so generally dislik'd + by them that it is not probable he will continue much + longer in his present Station, the general Wish here + being to recover (saving only the Dignity of + Government) the Good-Will of the Colonies, which there + is little reason to expect while they are under his + wild Administration. Their permitting so long his + Eccentricities (if I may use such an Expression) is + owing, I imagine, rather to the Difficulty of knowing + how to dispose of or what to do with a man of his + wrong-headed bustling Industry, who, it is apprehended, + may be more mischievous out of Administration than in + it, than to any kind of personal Regard for him. + +The Earthen Pot and the Brazen Pitcher _did_ collide, and, contrary to +every physical law, it was not the Earthen Pot that suffered. Certain +Americans, including Franklin himself, and certain Englishmen had applied +to the Crown for a tract of land between the Alleghanies and the Ohio +River, and their petition was referred to the Board of Trade of which +Hillsborough was President. It asked for the right to settle two million, +five hundred thousand acres. Hillsborough, who was secretly hostile to the +grant, for the purpose of over-loading the application, deceitfully +suggested that the applicants should ask for enough land to constitute a +province; whereupon Franklin took him at his word and changed the acreage +petitioned for to twenty-three million acres. When the report of the Lords +Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, drafted by Hillsborough, was made, +it opposed the grant. + + If a vast territory [said His Majesty's Governor of + Georgia, in a letter to the Commissioners, which is + quoted in the Report], be granted to any set of + gentlemen, who really mean to people it, and actually + do so, it must draw and carry out a great number of + people from Great Britain; and I apprehend they will + soon become a kind of separate and independent people, + and who will set up for themselves; that they will soon + have manufactures of their own; that they will neither + take supplies from the mother country, nor from the + provinces, at the back of which they are settled; that, + being at a distance from the seat of government, + courts, magistrates, &c., &c., they will be out of the + reach and control of law and government; that it will + become a receptacle and kind of asylum for offenders, + who will fly from justice to such new country or + colony. + +To this report, which sought to confine America to practically the same +limits as those fixed by the French, Franklin, with his knowledge of +American conditions, and breadth of vision, made such a crushing reply +that, when the report and the reply came before the Privy Council, the +application for the grant, partly because of the strength of Franklin's +reply, and, partly from dislike to Hillsborough, was approved. Mortified by +this action, Hillsborough resigned his office, and was succeeded by Lord +Dartmouth, the nobleman described by Cowper as "One who wears a coronet, +and prays." + +In keeping with the deceit, practiced by Hillsborough, in endeavoring to +give an extravagant turn to the Ohio petition, was his previous bearing +towards Franklin after the interview with the latter, at which he paid such +a fulsome tribute to his own firmness. During the year preceding the action +of the Privy Council, Franklin had heard that Hillsborough had expressed +himself about him in very angry terms, calling him a Republican, a +factious, mischievous fellow, and the like. Nevertheless, a few weeks +later, when he was in Ireland, Hillsborough pressed him so warmly to call +upon him at his country-seat, upon his way to the North of Ireland, that he +did so, and was detained there no less than four days, in the enjoyment of +a hospitality so assiduous that his host, Franklin tells us, even put his +oldest son, Lord Kilwarling, into his phaeton with him, to drive him a +round of forty miles, that he might see the country, the seats, +manufactures, etc., and moreover covered him with his own great coat lest +he should take cold. Later, after both Franklin and Hillsborough had +returned to London, the former called upon the latter repeatedly for the +purpose of thanking him for his civilities in Ireland. On each day, he was +told that his Lordship was not at home, although on two of them he had good +reason to know the contrary. On the last of the two, which was one of his +Lordship's levee days, the porter, seeing Franklin, came out and surlily +chid the latter's coachman for opening the door of his coach before he had +inquired whether his Lordship was at home. Then, turning to Franklin, he +said, "My Lord is not at home." "I have never since been nigh him," +Franklin wrote to his son, "and we have only abused one another at a +distance." + +During the year succeeding the action of the Privy Council, when Franklin +was with his friend Lord Le Despencer at Oxford, Lord Hillsborough, upon +being told by Lord Le Despencer, as they were descending the stairs in +Queen's College, that Franklin was above, reascended them immediately, and, +approaching Franklin in the pleasantest manner imaginable, said, "Dr. +Franklin, I did not know till this Minute that you were here, and I am come +back _to make you my Bow_! I am glad to see you at Oxford, and that you +look so well," &c. + + In Return for this Extravagance [Franklin said in a + letter to his son], I complimented him on his Son's + Performance in the Theatre, tho' indeed it was but + indifferent, so that Account was settled. For as People + say, when they are angry, _If he strikes me_, _I'll + strike him again_; I think sometimes it may be right to + say, _If he flatters me_, _I'll flatter him again_. + This is _Lex Talionis_, returning Offences in kind. His + Son however (Lord Fairford), is a valuable young Man, + and his Daughters, Ladys Mary and Charlotte, most + amiable young Women. My Quarrel is only with him, who, + of all the Men I ever met with, is surely the most + unequal in his Treatment of People, the most insincere, + and the most wrong-headed. + +Such was the man, to whom the oversight of American affairs was committed +at a highly critical period in the relations of England and the Colonies. +Speaking of Hillsborough's successor, Lord Dartmouth, Franklin said, "he is +truly a good Man, and wishes sincerely a good Understanding with the +Colonies, but does not seem to have Strength equal to his Wishes." This +minister was wise enough to recognize the agents of the American colonies, +including Franklin, again, despite the stand taken by Hillsborough against +them. But, when Lord Chatham's conciliatory plan was so summarily rejected +by the House of Lords, Dartmouth, though he had, when the motion was first +made, suggested that it should be deliberately considered, was later swept +along unresistingly by the majority. In his account of the incident, +Franklin said, "I am the more particular in this, as it is a Trait of that +Nobleman's Character, who from his Office is suppos'd to have so great a +Share in American affairs, but who has in reality no Will or Judgment of +his own, being with Dispositions for the best Measures, easily prevail'd +with to join in the worst." + +But it is in the history of the Hutchinson letters that we find the most +convincing proof of the hopelessness of Franklin's task in his endeavor to +bring public opinion in England over to his generous views of her true +interests. On one occasion, when speaking in terms of warm resentment of +the conduct of the ministry in dispatching troops to Boston, he was to his +great surprise, to use his own words, assured by a gentleman of character +and distinction that the action of the ministry in this, and the other +respects, obnoxious to America, had been brought about by some of the most +reputable persons among the Americans themselves. He was skeptical, and the +gentleman, whose name he never revealed, being desirous of establishing the +truth of his statement to the satisfaction of both Franklin and Franklin's +countrymen, called upon Franklin a few days afterwards, and exhibited to +him letters from Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson and Secretary Andrew Oliver +of Massachusetts, and other residents of that colony which only too +conclusively confirmed what had been said. The gentleman would not permit +copies to be taken of the letters, but he delivered the originals to +Franklin with the express understanding that they were not to be printed, +that no copies were to be taken of them, that they were to be shown only +to a few leading men in Massachusetts, and were to be carefully returned. +Franklin transmitted them, subject to these conditions, to Thomas Cushing +of the Committee of Correspondence at Boston. He did so, he tells us, +because he thought that to shift the responsibility for the recent +ministerial measures from England to America would tend to restore good +feeling between the people of Massachusetts and England, and, moreover, +because he felt that intelligence of such importance should not be withheld +from the constituents whose agent he was. In his communication, +accompanying the letters, Franklin stipulated that they were to be read +only by the members of the Massachusetts Committee of Correspondence, +Messrs. Bowdoin and Pitts of the Council, Drs. Chauncey, Cooper and +Winthrop, and a few such other persons as Cushing might select; and were to +be returned in a few months to him; but it is not true, as was afterwards +alleged by his enemies, that his communication was attended by any effort +to conceal his personal relations to the letters. A part of the +communication is too good a specimen of the precision that Franklin always +brought to the language of rebuke or condemnation not to be quoted at +length. + + As to the writers [he said], I can easily as well as + charitably conceive it possible, that a Man educated in + Prepossessions of the unbounded Authority of + Parliament, &c. may think unjustifiable every + Opposition even to its unconstitutional Exactions, and + imagine it their Duty to suppress, as much as in them + lies, such Opposition. But when I find them bartering + away the Liberties of their native Country for Posts, + and negociating for Salaries and Pensions extorted from + the People; and, conscious of the Odium these might be + attended with, calling for Troops to protect and secure + the Enjoyment of them: When I see them exciting + Jealousies in the Crown, and provoking it to Wrath + against so great a Part of its most faithful Subjects; + creating Enmities between the different Countries of + which the Empire consists; occasioning a great Expence + to the _Old_ Country for Suppressing or Preventing + imaginary Rebellions in the _New_, and to the new + Country for the Payment of needless Gratifications to + useless Officers and Enemies; I can not but doubt their + Sincerity even in the political Principles they + profess, and deem them mere Time-servers seeking their + own private Emolument, thro' any Quantity of Publick + Mischief; Betrayers of the Interest, not of their + native Country only, but of the Government they pretend + to serve, and of the whole English Empire. + +Later, after strong representations had been made to Franklin by Cushing +that the letters could be put to no effective use, unless they could be +retained or copied, Franklin obtained leave from the gentleman, who had +entrusted them to him, to authorize Cushing to show them to any persons +that he chose. The fact that the letters were in Boston was soon noised +abroad, whereupon the Assembly required them to be laid before it, though +under its promise that they would not be printed. An occasion or pretext +for disregarding this promise soon arose, when copies were produced in the +House by a member who was said to have received them from England. Then the +Assembly adopted a series of indignant resolutions, declaring, among other +things, that the authors of the letters were justly chargeable with the +great corruption of morals, and all the confusion, misery and bloodshed +which had been the natural effects of the introduction of troops into the +Province, and that it was its bounden duty to pray that his Majesty would +be pleased to remove Hutchinson and Oliver forever from the Government +thereof. These resolutions were duly followed by a petition for the removal +which was transmitted to Franklin and by him transmitted to Lord Dartmouth, +who laid it before the King. + +When the news reached England that the letters had been published in +Massachusetts, there was great curiosity to know who had transmitted them. +Thomas Whately, a London banker, and the brother of William Whately, then +deceased, to whom they were written, was suspected; he suspected John +Temple, a former Governor of New Hampshire, who had had access to the +papers of the decedent, and, his suspicions having been brought to the +attention of Temple, the latter called upon him, denied all knowledge of +the letters, and demanded a public exoneration. The written statement from +Whately which followed was not satisfactory to Temple, and he challenged +the former to a duel in which Whately was severely wounded. Up to this +time, it was not known except to a few persons that Franklin had forwarded +the letters to America; nor even for a time after the duel did he feel that +it was incumbent upon him to tell the world that he had done so. But, when +he heard that the duel would probably be renewed, as soon as Whately +recovered his strength, he felt discharged from the obligation of silence +that he had previously recognized to the person from whom he had received +the letters, and published a communication in the _Public Advertiser_ +stating that it was impossible for Whately to have sent the letters to +Boston, or for Temple to have purloined them from Whately, because they had +never been in Whately's possession, and that he, Franklin alone, was the +person who "obtained and transmitted to Boston the letters in +question."[24] + +Franklin had put his head into the lion's jaws. While he was preparing for +his return to America, for the purpose of attending to a matter arising out +of the operations of the American Post-office Department, he received a +notice from the Clerk of the Privy Council, informing him that the Lords of +the Committee for Plantation Affairs would meet at the Cockpit on Tuesday, +January 11, 1774, at noon, for the purpose of considering the petition for +the removal of Hutchinson and Oliver, which had been referred to the +Council by the King, and requiring him to be present. A similar notice was +sent to Bollan, the London Agent of the Massachusetts Council. When the +petition came on for hearing, at the request of Franklin, its consideration +was postponed for some three weeks, so that he could retain counsel to face +Alexander Wedderburn, the Solicitor-general, who had been retained by +Israel Mauduit, the agent of the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor of +Massachusetts. + +The counsel retained by Franklin were John Dunning, a former +Solicitor-general, and subsequently Lord Ashburton, and John Lee, who later +became the Solicitor-general under the administration of Charles James Fox. +When the hearing did take place, it proved for every reason a memorable +one. Edmund Burke could not recollect that so many Privy Councillors had +ever attended a meeting of the Council before. There were no less than +thirty-five in attendance. The Lord President Gower presided. In the +audience, among other persons, were the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord +North, the Prime Minister, Lord Shelburne, Edmund Burke, Joseph Priestley, +Jeremy Bentham, Arthur Lee, of Virginia, then a law student in London, who +had been selected by the Legislature of Massachusetts to act as its agent, +in the event of the absence or death of Franklin, Ralph Izard, of South +Carolina, who had borne Temple's challenge to Thomas Whately, and Dr. +Edward Bancroft, who was afterwards at Paris with Franklin. The hearing was +opened by the reading of the letter written by Franklin to Lord Dartmouth, +when transmitting the petition to him, the petition itself, the resolutions +of the Massachusetts Assembly and the letters upon which they were based. +In Franklin's opinion, Dunning and Lee in their pleas "acquitted +themselves very handsomely." Dunning's points, Burke thought, were "well +and ably put." The appeal of the Massachusetts Assembly, Dunning argued was +to the wisdom and goodness of his Majesty; they were asking a favor, not +demanding justice. As they had no impeachment to make, so they had no +evidence to offer. Of similar tenor was the address of John Lee. The reply +of Wedderburn was pointed and brilliant, and as rabid as if he had been +summing up against an ordinary criminal at an ordinary assize. + + The letters, could not have come to Dr. Franklin [he + argued], by fair means. The writers did not give them + to him; nor yet did the deceased correspondent, who, + from our intimacy, would otherwise have told me of it. + Nothing, then, will acquit Dr. Franklin of the charge + of obtaining them by fraudulent or corrupt means, for + the most malignant of purposes, unless he stole them + from the person who stole them. This argument is + irrefragable. I hope, my lords, you will mark and brand + the man, for the honor of this country, of Europe, and + of mankind. Private correspondence has hitherto been + held sacred in times of the greatest party rage, not + only in politics but religion.... He has forfeited all + the respect of societies and of men [the orator went + on]. Into what companies will he hereafter go with an + unembarrassed face, or the honest intrepidity of + virtue? Men will watch him with a jealous eye; they + will hide their papers from him, and lock up their + escritoirs. He will henceforth esteem it a libel to be + called a _man of letters_; _homo TRIUM literarum_! + [_Trium litterarum homo_, a man of three letters, was a + fur, or thief]. But [continued Wedderburn], he not only + took away the letters from one brother; but kept + himself concealed till he nearly occasioned the murder + of the other. It is impossible to read his account, + expressive of the coolest and most deliberate malice, + without horror. Amidst these tragical events, of one + person nearly murdered, of another answerable for the + issue, of a worthy governor hurt in his dearest + interests, the fate of America in suspense; here is a + man, who, with the utmost insensibility of remorse, + stands up and avows himself the author of all. I can + compare it only to Zanga, in Dr. Young's _Revenge_: + + "Know then 'twas--I; + I forged the letter, I disposed the picture; + I hated, I despised, and I destroy." + + I ask, my Lords, whether the revengeful temper + attributed by poetic fiction only, to the bloody + African, is not surpassed by the coolness and apathy of + the wily American? + +More than one bystander has recorded the impressions left upon his mind by +this savage philippic. + + I was not more astonished [Jeremy Bentham tells us] at + the brilliancy of his lightning, than astounded at the + thunder that accompanied it. As he stood, the cushion + lay on the council table before him; his station was + between the seats of two of the members, on the side of + the right hand of the Lord President. I would not for + double the greatest fee the orator could on that + occasion have received, been in the place of that + cushion; the ear was stunned at every blow. + +"At the sallies of his sarcastic wit," Priestley declares, "all the members +of the Council, the President himself not excepted, frequently laughed +outright. No person belonging to the Council behaved with decent gravity, +except Lord North, who, coming late, took his stand behind the chair +opposite to me." Burke spoke of the attack on "Poor Dr. Franklin" as +"beyond all bounds and decency," and the language, used by Lord Shelburne, +in describing it to Lord Chatham, was hardly, if any, less emphatic. "The +behavior of the Judges," he said, "exceeded, as was agreed on all hands, +that of any committee of elections." Dunning's rejoinder to Wedderburn was +wholly ineffective. His voice, always thick, was, from illness, feebler and +huskier than usual even in his first address, and, exhausted as he was by +standing for three hours in a room, in which no one was allowed to sit but +the Privy Councillors themselves, who were supposed on such occasions to be +the immediate representatives of the King, his second address was hardly +audible. Lee was equally ineffective. Wedderburn's speech, therefore, which +from a purely forensic point of view was really a masterpiece, was left to +assert its full effect, to become the sensation of every Club in London, +and to win the plaudit of every bigoted or unreflecting Englishman. "All +men," Fox said, "tossed up their hats and clapped their hands in boundless +delight at it." + +What of Franklin during the malignant assault? The apartment, in which the +hearing took place, was a small one. At one end, was an open fireplace, +with a recess on each side of it. The Council table stretched from a point +near this fireplace to the other end of the room. The Lord President sat at +its head, and the other councillors were ranged in seats down its sides. +Such spectators as had been able to secure the highly-prized privilege of +being present remained standing throughout the session. In the chimney +recess to the left of the President, stood Franklin with Burke and +Priestley nearby. The dialectical ability and skill, which made his +examination before the House of Commons so famous, he now had no +opportunity to display; and unfailing fortitude was all that he could +oppose to the outrage for which he had been singled out. With that, +however, his uncommon strength of character abundantly supplied him. + + The Doctor was dressed in a full dress suit of spotted + Manchester velvet [Dr. Edward Bancroft wrote years + afterwards to William Temple Franklin], and stood + _conspicuously erect_, without the smallest movement of + any part of his body. The muscles of his face had been + previously composed, so as to afford a placid, tranquil + expression of countenance, and he did not suffer the + slightest alteration of it to appear during the + continuance of the speech, in which he was so harshly + and improperly treated. In short, to quote the words + which he employed concerning himself on another + occasion, he kept "his countenance as immovable as if + his features had been made of wood." + + Alone, in the recess on the left hand of the president, + stood Benjamin Franklin [is the account of Bentham], in + such position as not to be visible from the situation + of the president, remaining the whole time like a rock, + in the same posture, his head resting on his left hand; + and in that attitude abiding the pelting of the + pitiless storm. + +Nothing but Jedburgh justice, of course, was to be expected from such a +Committee in such a case, represented by such an advocate. Its report, +dated the same day as its sitting, and as likely as not drafted beforehand, +found that the letters had been surreptitiously obtained, and contained +"nothing reprehensible"; that the petition was based on resolutions, formed +on false and erroneous allegations; and was groundless, vexatious and +scandalous; and calculated only for the seditious purpose of keeping up a +spirit of clamor and discontent in the province; and that nothing had been +laid before the Committee which did, or could, in their opinion, in any +manner, or in any degree, impeach the honor, integrity, or conduct of the +Governor or Lieutenant-Governor. Wherefore, the Lords of the Committee were +humbly of the opinion that the petition ought to be dismissed. This +recommendation was approved by the King, and an order was issued by him +that the petition be dismissed, as answering the character imputed to it by +the Committee. Nor did vengeance stop here. On the second day, after the +Committee rose, Franklin was handed a communication from the +Postmaster-General, informing him in brief terms that the King had "found +it necessary" to dismiss him from the office of Deputy Postmaster-General +in America. + +In reporting the manner in which he had been affronted by the Privy Council +to his Massachusetts constituents, Franklin used language in keeping with +the sober spirit in which he had striven from the beginning to bring about +an understanding between England and her Colonies. + + What I feel on my own account [he said], is half lost + in what I feel for the public. When I see, that all + petitions and complaints of grievances are so odious to + government, that even the mere pipe which conveys them + becomes obnoxious, I am at a loss to know how peace and + union are to be maintained or restored between the + different parts of the empire. Grievances cannot be + redressed unless they are known; and they cannot be + known but through complaints and petitions. If these + are deemed affronts, and the messengers punished as + offenders, who will henceforth send petitions? And who + will deliver them? It has been thought a dangerous + thing in any state to stop up the vent of griefs. Wise + governments have therefore generally received petitions + with some indulgence, even when but slightly founded. + Those, who think themselves injured by their rulers, + are sometimes, by a mild and prudent answer, convinced + of their error. But where complaining is a crime, hope + becomes despair. + +His fellow-Americans were not so self-restrained. The American Post Office +was shunned by its former patrons, and letters were delivered largely by +private agencies, effigies of Wedderburn and Hutchinson were carried about +the streets of Philadelphia, and, at night, were burnt, we are told, by +Joseph Reed, "with the usual ceremonies, amidst the acclamations of the +multitude." "Nothing can exceed," the same narrator adds, "the veneration +in which Dr. Franklin is now held, but the detestation we have of his +enemies." Wedderburn, who had complained in his speech of the attention +paid by the press to the movements of Franklin, as though he were a great +diplomatic character, had more occasion than ever to sneer at his public +prominence. Hutchinson was compelled to resign his office, and to retire +from execration in America to a slender pension and obscurity in England. +Even in England, Horace Walpole stayed the pen, to which we are indebted +for so many charming letters, long enough to write: + + "Sarcastic Sawney, swol'n with spite and prate, + On silent Franklin poured his venal hate, + The calm philosopher, without reply, + Withdrew, and gave his country liberty."[25] + +Lord John Russell has said that it is "impossible to justify the conduct of +Franklin" in the matter of the Hutchinson letters, and from time to time +the same idea has been more or less hesitatingly advanced by others. Its +justice, we confess, has never been apparent to us. That the letters did +pass into the possession of Franklin, under the circumstances stated by +him, which certainly do not reflect in any manner upon his honor, can +hardly be doubted, unless mere suspicion is to give the lie to a life of +uniform integrity. The mode, in which they were transmitted to America, +under the restrictions imposed by him, was attended with so little regard +to secrecy, so far as his connection with them was concerned, that Dr. +Cooper wrote to him, "I can not, however, but admire your honest openness +in this affair, and noble negligence of any inconveniences that might arise +to yourself in this essential service to our injured country." It was not +until the letters had been printed in America, contrary to his engagement +with the gentleman, who had handed them to him, that he expressed the wish +to Dr. Cooper that the fact of his having sent them should be kept secret, +and not then until his inclinations on the subject were pointedly sounded +by Dr. Cooper. As soon as they threatened to cause bloodshed, which he had +a chance to avert, he made his connection with them public, and assumed the +full responsibility for his act. Moreover, he truly said of the letters, +when he assumed this responsibility in his communication to the _Public +Advertiser_, "They were not of the nature of _private_ letters between +friends. They were written by public officers to persons in public +stations, on public affairs, and intended to procure public measures; they +were therefore handed to other public persons, who might be influenced by +them to produce those measures." Little can be added to this convincing +statement. If a political agent of England in Boston had, under the same +circumstances, come into possession of letters from English officials in +England to Cushing or Dr. Cooper, revealing a deliberate intent on the +part of the writers to initiate measures aimed at the just prerogatives of +the Crown or Parliament, who would have thought the worse of him if he had +transmitted them to King or Parliament? Were letters designed to help along +the introduction of a military force into Boston for the purpose of +abridging the political liberties of its people entitled to any higher +degree of privacy? The accusation that Franklin had violated the confidence +of private correspondence came with but poor grace, to say the least, from +a Government which made a practice of breaking the seals of letters, and of +no letters oftener than of those of Franklin, entrusted to its care. +Indeed, not only were the seals of Franklin's letters frequently broken, +and the letters read, but, in some instances, the letters were permanently +retained by the English Government. + +It was the fashion in England for a long time to ascribe the intense +resentment felt by Franklin against England, after war broke out between +that country and the colonies, to the indignity to which he was subjected +by the Privy Council, and his dismission from office. The statement is not +supported by the facts. That these circumstances made a deep impression +upon his mind is undeniable, but it was really not until he found himself +in America in 1775 that he gave himself up to the conclusion that nothing +was to be gained by his remaining longer in England. After his removal from +office, he still counselled his correspondents in America to adhere to a +policy of patience and self-restraint, and in a letter to Thomas Cushing +and others, written only a few days after the hearing at the Cockpit, he +termed the destruction of the tea at Boston an unwarrantable destruction of +private property and "an Act of violent Injustice." To all the efforts of +Lord Chatham and his high-minded associates, after this hearing, to bring +about a reconciliation between England and America, he lent the full weight +of his advice and experience. And, when some of the members of the British +Ministry, after it, ashamed to deal with him directly, covertly opened up +an interchange of proposals with him through David Barclay, Dr. Fothergill +and Lord Howe, in regard to the terms upon which a reconciliation might +still be reached, he entered into the negotiations with a spirit singularly +free from personal bitterness. There are few things more pathetic in the +history of sundered ties than the account that Priestley has given us of +the last days that Franklin spent in England in 1775. "A great part of the +day above-mentioned that we spent together," Priestley tells us, "he was +looking over a number of American newspapers, directing me what to extract +from them for the English ones; and in reading them, he was frequently not +able to proceed for the tears literally running down his cheeks." These, +however, were not womanish tears, but rather such iron tears as ran down +Pluto's cheeks. Never was there a time after the heart of America was laid +bare to Franklin by the remonstrance against the Stamp Act when he was not +unflinchingly prepared, if the painful necessity was forced upon him, to +unite with his countrymen in defying the armed power of England. As the +fateful issue of the protracted controversy approached nearer and nearer, +his language became bolder and bolder. + + The eyes of all Christendom [he wrote to James Bowdoin + a few days before he left England in 1775], are now + upon us, and our honour as a people is become a matter + of the utmost consequence to be taken care of. If we + tamely give up our rights in this contest, a century to + come will not restore us in the opinion of the world; + we shall be stamped with the character of dastards, + poltrons and fools; and be despised and trampled upon, + not by this haughty, insolent nation only, but by all + mankind. Present inconveniences are, therefore, to be + borne with fortitude, and better times expected. + + "Informes hyemes reducit + Jupiter; idem + Summovet. Non si male nunc, et olim + Sic erit."[26] + +When he reached the shores of his native land, it was to hear that, while +he was at sea, the battles of Lexington and Concord had been fought, and +that the veins of the two countries, which he had striven so hard to keep +closed, were already open and running.[27] + +From that day, Franklin took his place with Washington, the Adamses, +Jefferson and Patrick Henry as an inflexible champion of armed resistance +to England. If he humored the more timid patriots, who were disposed to +make still further appeals to English generosity, it was not because he +shared their fallacious hopes but because he did not wish one column of the +revolutionary movement to get too far in advance of the other. At this +period of his life, his reputation was already very great. The English +Tories believed or affected to believe that he was the father of all the +mischief responsible for the American crisis. The English Whigs leaned upon +his advice and assistance as those of a man who had the welfare of the +entire British Empire deeply at heart. How he was regarded at home, is well +illustrated in what General Nathanael Greene and Abigail Adams had to say +of him when he subsequently visited Washington's head-quarters during the +siege of Boston as a member of the Committee appointed by Congress to +confer with Washington and delegates from the New England Colonies as to +the best plan for raising, maintaining and disciplining the continental +army. Recalling an occasion at this time, when Franklin had been brought +under his observation, Greene wrote, "During the whole evening, I viewed +that very great man with silent admiration." The language of Abigail Adams +was not less intense. + + I had the pleasure of dining with Dr. Franklin [she + said], and of admiring him, whose character from my + infancy I had been taught to venerate. I found him + social but not talkative; and, when he spoke, something + useful dropped from his tongue. He was grave, yet + pleasant and affable. You know I make some pretensions + to physiognomy, and I thought I could read in his + countenance the virtues of his heart, among which, + patriotism shone in its full lustre: and with that is + blended every virtue of a Christian. + +Those were dramatic hours when highly wrought feelings readily ran into +hyperbole; nor had any Madame Helvétius come along yet with her "Hélas! +Franklin," and disordered skirts. + +The reputation, which called forth these tributes, brought Franklin at once +to the very forefront of the American Revolution, when he arrived at +Philadelphia. The morning after his arrival, he, Thomas Willing and James +Wilson, were elected by the Assembly of Pennsylvania as additional deputies +to the Continental Congress that was to meet in Philadelphia in a few days, +and he was re-elected to Congress at every succeeding election until his +departure for France. By the first Congress, he was appointed Chairman of a +Committee to devise a postal system for America; and when this Committee +recommended the appointment of a Postmaster-General and various postal +subordinates, and the establishment of a line of posts from Falmouth (now +Portland) in Maine to Savannah, with as many cross posts as the +Postmaster-General might think fit, Franklin was elected by Congress the +Postmaster-General for the first year. He was also appointed by Congress +one of the members of a committee to draw up a declaration, to be published +by Washington when he took command of the American army, but the paper +drafted by him does not appear to have ever been presented by him to +Congress. At any rate, it adds nothing to his literary reputation, and is +disfigured by one of the unseasonable _facetiæ_ into which he had a way of +wandering at times on grave occasions, after he found his feet again in the +easy slippers of his old American environment. + +Franklin also made some wise suggestions to Congress with respect to the +best method of preventing the depreciation of the paper money issued by it. +His first suggestion was that the bills should bear interest. This +suggestion was rejected. His next was that, instead of the issuance of any +more paper money, what had already been issued should be borrowed back upon +interest. His last was that the interest should be paid in hard money, but +both of the latter suggestions, though approved by Congress, were approved +too late to accomplish their objects. After due tenderness had been +exhibited by him to John Dickinson and the other members of Congress, who +still clung to the hope of a reconciliation with England, Franklin brought +forward a plan for the permanent union and efficient government of the +Colonies. Under this plan each colony was to retain its internal +independence, but its external relations, especially as respected +resistance to the measures of the English Ministry, were committed to an +annually-elected Congress. The supreme executive authority of the union was +to be vested in a council of twelve, to be elected by the Congress. +Ireland, Canada, the West Indies, Bermuda, Nova Scotia and Florida as well +as the thirteen colonies within the present limits of the United States, +were to be invited to join the confederacy. The union was to last until +British oppression ceased, and reparation was made to the Colonies for the +injuries inflicted upon them; which, of course, under the circumstances, +meant until the Greek Calends. The plan was referred to a committee, but it +was never acted upon by the House; being too bold a project to suit the +cautious scruples of John Dickinson and the other moderate members of the +Continental Congress, who dreaded the effect of a project of union upon the +mind of the King, while the petition of Congress to him was pending. Among +other important committees upon which Franklin served, when a member of the +first Continental Congress, was one to investigate the sources of +saltpetre; another to treat with the Indians; another to look after the +engraving and printing of the continental paper money; another to consider +Lord North's conciliatory resolution; another on salt and lead; and still +another to report a plan for regulating and protecting the commerce of the +Colonies. At the next session of the Congress, he was equally active. Among +the things in which we find him engaged at this session, are the +arrangement of a system of posts and expresses for the rapid transmission +of dispatches; the establishment of a line of packets between America and +Europe; an effort to promote the circulation of the continental money; and +the preparation of instructions for the American generals. It was at this +session of Congress, too, that Thomas Lynch, of South Carolina, Benjamin +Harrison, of Virginia, and himself were appointed the committee to visit +Washington's camp before Boston. The journey to Boston consumed thirteen +days, and the conference, which followed with the American +Commander-in-Chief and the delegates from the New England Colonies, +resulted in many judicious conclusions with regard to the organization of +the American army, and the conduct of the war, and, moreover, was an +additional assurance to Washington and New England that, in the military +operations before Boston, they could count upon the support of all America. +It is obvious enough from writings, found among the papers of Franklin in +his handwriting, that months before the Declaration of Independence was +signed he was fully ready to renounce all allegiance to Great Britain. When +the more conservative members of Congress so far yielded to their fears as +to adopt, with the aid of some of the members from New England, a +declaration that independence was not their aim, Franklin approved a plan +then formed by Samuel Adams of bringing at least all the New England +provinces together in a confederacy. "If you succeed," he said to Adams, "I +will cast in my lot among you." This was six months before the adoption of +the Declaration of Independence. Franklin also served with John Jay and +Thomas Jefferson upon a committee to interview a mysterious foreigner who +had repeatedly expressed a desire to make a confidential communication to +Congress. The stranger, who possessed a military bearing and spoke with a +French accent, assured the committee that his most Christian Majesty, the +King of France, had heard with pleasure of the exertions made by the +American Colonies in defence of their rights and privileges, wished them +success, and would, when necessary, manifest in a more open manner his +friendly sentiments towards them. But, as often as he was asked by the +committee for his authority for conveying such flattering assurances, he +contented himself with drawing his hand across his throat, and saying, +"Gentlemen, I shall take care of my head." + +When the report of this committee was made to Congress, a motion on the +strength of it to send envoys to France was defeated, but later a +committee composed of Benjamin Harrison, John Dickinson, Thomas Johnson, +John Jay and Franklin was appointed "to correspond secretly with friends in +Great Britain, Ireland, and other parts of the world." The duties of this +committee were mainly discharged by Franklin, who had, as we have seen, +contracted many durable friendships abroad with men whose aid might mean +much to America. To Charles W. F. Dumas, a native of Switzerland, residing +at The Hague, he wrote, asking him to sound secretly the ambassadors of the +different Powers, other than Great Britain, there for the purpose of +ascertaining whether any of their courts were inclined to aid the Colonies +or to form alliances with them, to let the mercantile world know that +America was prepared to pay very high prices for arms, gunpowder and +saltpetre, to send to America two engineer officers qualified to direct +siege operations, construct forts and field-works and command artillery, +and to receive and forward all letters that passed between the committee +and its friends and agents abroad. A draft for one hundred pounds sterling +accompanied the letter, together with an assurance from the committee that +Dumas' services would be "considered and honorably rewarded by Congress." A +similar letter was sent to Arthur Lee in London, accompanied by a +remittance of two hundred pounds as his compensation. By the same ship went +a letter from Franklin to Don Gabriel de Bourbon of Spain, in which, after +thanking the Prince for the copy which he had sent him of the handsome +Sallust, printed several years before at the royal press at Madrid, +Franklin cleverly leads the attention of the Prince on to the consideration +of a rising state which seemed likely soon to act a part of some importance +on the stage of human affairs, and to furnish materials for a future +Sallust. This letter, in which literary sympathy, the high-bred courtesy of +a Spanish hidalgo and political address are mingled with the happiest +effect, is a good example of what it meant to America to have such a man as +Franklin as her world-interpreter. These letters were all entrusted to the +care of a special messenger, Thomas Story. Soon after he left America, M. +Penet, a merchant of Nantes, sailed for France with a contract from the +committee for furnishing arms, ammunition and clothing to the American army +and various letters from Franklin to friends of his in France, including +his devoted pupil, Dr. Dubourg. Subsequently, before a reply had been +received to any of the letters written by Franklin on its behalf, the +committee decided to send an agent to Paris duly empowered to treat with +the French King. Silas Deane, a Yale graduate, and a man, who might have +left an unblemished reputation as an American patriot behind him, if Arthur +Lee had not hounded him out of France and America into England, was +selected for this mission. He was selected, Adams is so unkind as to +intimate, because he was a Congressman who had lost his seat in Congress. +For him Franklin drew up a letter of instruction, fixing the character that +he was to assume, that of a merchant, when he reached France, mentioning +the persons friendly to America with whom he was to establish a familiar +intercourse, and prescribing the manner in which he was to approach M. de +Vergennes, the French Minister, for the purpose of soliciting the +friendship and assistance of France. + +Another important call was made upon the services of Franklin, when with +Samuel Chase and Charles Carroll of Carrollton, as his colleagues, he was +appointed by Congress to visit Canada, and to endeavor to rescue our +affairs in that country from the lamentable condition of confusion and +distress into which they had fallen. Quebec had been assaulted by +Montgomery and Arnold, and had repelled the assault, Montgomery being +killed and Arnold wounded in the attempt, and the American army was +wasting away in the face of the intense cold, hunger and the small-pox. For +the Continental paper money the Canadians had come to entertain a supreme +contempt, and their attitude towards the Americans, with whom they had so +often been at war in their earlier history, was in every respect that of +distrust and aversion. With the committee went John Carroll, the brother of +Charles Carroll of Carrollton, who had been educated for the priesthood in +France, and spoke its language with perfect fluency. It was thought at the +time that for the Commission to take with it to Catholic and French Canada +such a companion was a masterly stroke of policy. The powers, with which +the Commission were clothed, were of a plenary description; to admit Canada +into the union of the Colonies, when brought over to the American cause by +the appeals of the Commissioners, and to admit it with a republican form of +government, to settle disputes between the civil and military authorities +in Canada, and to exercise an extraordinary degree of authority in one form +or another with respect to the military forces of America there. They were +even to take steps to establish a newspaper in Canada to help along the +American propaganda. + +Of all the episodes in the life of Franklin, this is the one upon which the +reader dwells with the least satisfaction. He was entirely too old for the +fatigues and hardships of the long April journey of five hundred miles from +Philadelphia to New York, and up the Hudson, and over Lakes George and +Champlain, and across the country at the head of Lake Champlain to +Montreal. The distance between Philadelphia and New York was covered by the +party in two days, the journey up the Hudson to Albany was made in a sloop, +engaged for them by Lord Stirling, and from Albany to the country seat of +General Philip Schuyler at Saratoga, thirty-two miles from Albany, they +were conveyed over deep roads in a large country-wagon furnished by the +General. Here it was that Franklin, debilitated by the exposure and shocks, +to which his frame had been subjected, began to apprehend that he had +undertaken a fatigue which, at his time of life, might prove too much for +him, and sat down to write to some of his friends by way of farewell. After +a few days' rest at Saratoga, the party, preceded by General Schuyler, went +forward to Lake George. Though it was the middle of April, the lakes of +that country were still covered with ice, and the roads with six inches of +snow. After two days and a half of further travel, the southern end of the +lake was reached. So encumbered with ice was it that the batteau, equipped +with an awning for a cabin, with which General Schuyler had provided the +party, took about thirty-six hours to traverse the thirty-six miles between +the southern extremity of the lake and its northern. Then came the portage +over the neck of land between Lake George and Lake Champlain, and the +re-embarkation, after a delay of five days, on the waters of the latter +lake. The portage was effected by placing the batteau on wheels and yoking +it up to a string of oxen. Three days and a half more brought the party to +St. John's, near the head of Lake Champlain, after a strenuous struggle +with baffling ice and head winds. Another day's journey in _calèches_ +brought them to Montreal where they were received by Arnold and a concourse +of officers and citizens, and saluted with military honors. + +It is enough to say that the Commissioners found American credit in Canada +sunk to the lowest point. Even the express, sent by them from St. John's to +tell Arnold of their arrival at that point, was held at a ferry for the +ferriage charge until a friend, who was passing, changed an American paper +dollar for him into silver; nor would the _calèches_ have come for the +Commissioners if this friend had not engaged to pay the hire. Military +defeat, violated contracts, discredited paper money and the anticipated +coming of a British force overhung like a bank of nimbus cloud the entire +horizon of American hopes in Canada. The Commissioners could not borrow +money either upon the public or upon their own private credit. In a letter +to Congress after they had been in Canada a week, they declared that, if +money could not be had to support the American army in Canada with honor, +so as to be respected instead of being hated by the people, it was their +firm and unanimous opinion that it would be better to immediately withdraw +it. With his usual public spirit, Franklin advanced on the credit of +Congress to Arnold and other servants of Congress three hundred and +fifty-three pounds in gold out of his own pocket--a loan which proved of +great service in procuring provisions for the American army at a time of +dire necessity. Two days after the letter of the Commissioners to Congress +was written, news came to Montreal that a British fleet, full of troops, +had reached Quebec, and landed a force, which had routed the small American +army there. The decision was at once reached that there was nothing for the +American forces to do but to retire to St. John's, and to prepare to resist +at that point the advance of the British. This decision was acted upon at +once, and the next morning Franklin, attended by John Carroll, set out on +his return to Philadelphia; leaving his fellow-commissioners to oversee the +retreat to St. John's and the establishment of defensive works at that +point. With the assistance of General Schuyler, he and his companion passed +safely down the lakes to Albany, and from Albany, after they had again +enjoyed the General's hospitality, they were conveyed by his chariot to New +York. Here Franklin wrote to his fellow-commissioners that he grew daily +more feeble, and thought that he could hardly have got along so far but for +Mr. Carroll's friendly assistance and tender care of him. Some symptoms of +the gout, he further said, had appeared, which made him believe that his +indisposition had been a smothered fit of that disorder, which his +constitution wanted strength to form completely. But, with the reappearance +of his old malady, came back the wit which, indeed, seems to have +languished but little at any time under the rigors of his arduous mission. +After congratulating Samuel Chase and Charles Carroll upon the recent +capture of a British prize, loaded with seventy-five tons of gunpowder and +a thousand carbines with bayonets, he further wrote: "The German +Auxiliaries are certainly coming. It is our Business to prevent their +Returning." + +In the early part of June, Franklin was again in Philadelphia after an +absence of about ten weeks. A little later the Declaration of Independence +was reported to Congress by the committee, consisting of Thomas Jefferson, +John Adams, Robert R. Livingston, Roger Sherman and himself, which had been +elected by Congress to draft it, and after a debate, during which John +Adams won only less reputation in defending, than Jefferson in writing, it, +was adopted and given to the world, whose political opinions it was to +influence so profoundly. Owing to a serious attack of the gout, Franklin +had no hand in its preparation beyond suggesting a few verbal alterations. +His part, however, in the adoption of the Articles of Confederation was +more active. To the plan of allowing the thirteen States to vote on all +questions by States, and of giving to each State, without reference to +population or wealth, a single vote, he was strongly opposed; so much so +that he even thought at one time of counselling Pennsylvania not to enter +into the union if the plan was adopted. He hotly declared that a +confederation upon such iniquitous terms would not last long. But we know +from what Jefferson tells us that he also had his humorous fling at it. "At +the time of the union of England and Scotland," he said, "the Duke of +Argyle was most violently opposed to that measure, and among other things +predicted that, as the whale had swallowed Jonah, so Scotland would be +swallowed by England." "However," added Franklin, "when Lord Bute came into +the government, he soon brought into its administration so many of his +countrymen that it was found, in event, that Jonah had swallowed the +whale." + +About the same time, Franklin, Jefferson and John Adams were appointed a +committee by Congress to hit upon a device for the seal of the Confederacy. +No more congenial task could possibly have been set for Franklin, whose +ingenuity always revelled in conceits of this kind. A device, based upon +the drowning of Pharaoh, and accompanied by the motto, "Rebellion to +tyrants is obedience to God," was suggested by him, and was made by the +Committee, together with the Eye of Providence in a radiant triangle, the +motto, _E Pluribus Unum_, and other elaborate features a part of its +recommendation. As soon as Franklin was safely out of the country in +France, Congress, perhaps not forgetting his story of John Thompson, the +hatter, rejected as too redundant the entire complicated design except the +_E Pluribus Unum_ and the Eye of Providence. + +In the summer of 1776, Franklin also endeavored to carry out in another +form his idea of preventing the Hessians from returning to their own +country by assisting in distributing among them tobacco wrapped in copies +of an address offering in the name of Congress a tract of land to every +soldier who should desert the British service. Congress could not see why, +if these hirelings were to be sold, they should not do the selling +themselves instead of their Princes. + +It was in the summer of 1776, too, that Franklin, John Adams and Edward +Rutledge, of South Carolina, were elected a committee by Congress to call +upon Lord Howe at Staten Island for the purpose of ascertaining whether he +had any authority to negotiate a treaty of peace, and, if so, of learning +what that authority was, and of receiving such propositions as he should +think fit to make. Lord Howe was at the time the Admiral of the King's +naval forces in America and joint commissioner with his brother General +William Howe to grant pardons to such of the American rebels as should be +ready to renew their allegiance to the King. On his arrival in July, 1776, +at Sandy Hook, he had taken steps to distribute throughout the Colonies a +declaration explaining the nature of the commission committed to his +brother and himself. At the same time, he had written a letter to Franklin +indicating his earnest desire to be instrumental in restoring peace between +England and America. The same carrier delivered a copy of the declaration +to Congress and the letter to Franklin. Both the declaration and the letter +were given rude rebuffs. Congress ordered the declaration to be inserted in +the newspapers so that, as it said, the few, who still remained suspended +by a hope, founded either in the justice or moderation of their late King, +might now at length be convinced that the valor alone of their country was +to save its liberties. Franklin, after obtaining the permission of +Congress, sent a reply to Lord Howe's letter by the hand of Colonel Palfrey +of the American army. It is one of the best letters that he ever wrote, and +told Lord Howe such blunt truths, and gave him such candid advice that, +after reading it with surprise repeatedly flitting over his face, Lord Howe +remarked to Colonel Palfrey with a gentleness as honorable to his amiable +character as to that of Franklin that his old friend had expressed himself +very warmly. Then subsequently had followed the disaster on Long Island, +and the arrival of General Sullivan on parole at Philadelphia with a verbal +message from Lord Howe to Congress, stating that he would like to confer +with some of its members as private individuals though he could not yet +treat with Congress itself. The result was the appointment of the committee +to call upon him at Staten Island. The conference between the committee +and Lord Howe took place at a house on that island and came to nothing. The +committee had no authority to do anything except to receive proposals from +Lord Howe, who really had no seasonable proposition to make, and Lord Howe +had no authority to do anything except to grant pardons to persons who were +not conscious of having committed any offence. When he stated in polite +terms that he could not confer with the members of the committee as a +committee of Congress but only as gentlemen of great ability and influence +in the colonies, Adams declared in his emphatic way that he was willing to +consider himself for a few moments in any character which would be +agreeable to his Lordship except that of a British subject. "Mr. Adams," +gravely observed Lord Howe, "is a decided character." All three of the +Commissioners one by one made it clear to Lord Howe that the colonies were +irrevocably committed to Independence. There was, therefore, nothing for +him to do except to say in the end, "I am sorry, gentlemen, that you have +had the trouble of coming so far to so little purpose." Minutes of this +interesting conference were jotted down by Henry Strachey, Lord Howe's +Secretary, and he has recorded two highly characteristic utterances of +Franklin on the occasion. Such, Lord Howe declared, were his feelings +towards America, on account of the honor conferred upon his family, by its +recognition of the services rendered to it by his eldest brother (Viscount +Howe), that, if America should fall, he would feel and lament it like the +loss of a brother. Franklin's answer to this generous outburst is thus +recorded by Strachey. "Dr. Franklin (with an easy air, a collected +countenance, a bow, a smile, and all that _naïveté_ which sometimes +appeared in his conversation and often in his writings), My Lord, we will +use our utmost endeavors to save your Lordship that mortification." Later, +when Lord Howe assured Franklin that it was the commerce, the strength, +the men of America rather than her money that Great Britain wanted, +Franklin, ever alive to the military advantage possessed by the Colonies in +the amazing capacity for reproduction of their people, replied, "Ay, My +Lord, we have in America a pretty considerable manufactory of men." +Strachey supposed that he meant to convey by this remark the impression +that the American army was a large one, but Lord Howe knew Franklin's turn +of mind better, and penciled on the margin of Strachey's manuscript, "No; +their increasing population." + +Lord Howe seems to have borne himself on this occasion in every respect +like a gallant gentleman. When the three members of Congress reached the +shore opposite to Staten Island, after the journey from Philadelphia, which +Adams had made on horseback, and Franklin and Rutledge in chairs, they +found a barge from him awaiting them with an officer in it as a hostage for +their safe return from the island. Adams suggested that the hostage should +be dispensed with, and his colleagues, he tells us in his grandiose way, +"exulted in the proposition and agreed to it instantly." The fact was +communicated to the officer, who bowed his assent, and re-embarked with the +Americans. When Lord Howe saw the barge approaching the beach of the +island, he walked down to meet it, and the Hessian regiment, which attended +him, was drawn up in two lines facing each other. Upon seeing that the +officer, whom he had sent over to the Jersey shore, had returned, Lord Howe +exclaimed, "Gentlemen, you make me a very high compliment, and you may +depend upon it I will consider it as the most sacred of things." When the +party landed, he shook hands very cordially with Franklin, and, after being +introduced to Adams and Rutledge, conducted the three between the two files +of Hessians to the house where the conference was to take place; all four +chatting pleasantly together as they walked along. Adams, who was far too +intense an American not to hate savagely a Hessian, fresh from the +cattle-pen of his Prince, described these soldiers as "looking fierce as +ten Furies, and making all the grimaces, and gestures, and motions of their +muskets with bayonets fixed, which, I suppose, military etiquette requires, +but which we neither understood nor regarded." The house, which was to be +the scene of the conference, was dilapidated and dirty from military use, +but the apartment, into which the Americans were ushered, had been hung +with moss and branches by Lord Howe with such refinement of taste that +Adams subsequently pronounced it "not only wholesome, but romantically +elegant." After reaching it, the whole party, including the colonel of the +Hessian regiment, sat down to a collation "of good claret, good bread, cold +ham, tongues, and mutton." When the repast was over, the colonel withdrew, +the table was cleared and the fruitless conference began. + +Nor was the activity of Franklin after his return from England limited to +his duties as a member of Congress. If he fell asleep at times, when +questions were under discussion by that body, it might well have been +because he had no other time to sleep. Shortly after his return, he was +elected Chairman of the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety, which was charged +with the duty of arming and defending the Province, and of issuing bills of +credit to defray the expense. In this office, he proved quite as fertile in +expedients as he had done at the time of the Association years before. In +the course of a year, the Delaware was effectively protected by forts and +batteries and by a marine _chevaux-de-frise_, planned by Franklin himself; +so much so that, when a British fleet attempted several years later to +ascend the river, its progress was blocked for two months. Other features +of the defensive plans adopted by the committee were row-galleys, fully +armed and manned, of which Josiah Quincy spoke in a letter to Washington as +"Dr. Franklin's row-galleys." + + In the morning at six [Franklin wrote to Priestley], I + am at the Committee of Safety, appointed by the + Assembly to put the Province in a state of defence; + which committee holds till near nine, when I am at the + Congress, and that sits till after four in the + afternoon. Both these bodies proceed with the greatest + unanimity, and their meetings are well attended. It + will scarce be credited in Britain, that men can be as + diligent with us from zeal for the public good, as with + you for thousands per annum. Such is the difference + between uncorrupted new states, and corrupted old ones. + +To the period when the Committee of Safety was holding its sessions belongs +a story which William Temple Franklin tells us of his grandfather. Some of +the more intolerant Pennsylvanians asked the Committee to call upon the +Episcopal clergy to refrain from prayers for the King. + + The measure [said Franklin, who always preserved his + sense of proportion] is quite unnecessary; for the + Episcopal clergy, to my certain knowledge, have been + constantly praying, these twenty years, that "_God + would give to the king and his council wisdom_"; and we + all know that not the least notice has ever been taken + of that prayer. + +While a member of Congress and the Committee of Safety, Franklin was also +elected a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly, but, as the members of that +body were still required before taking their seats to pledge their +allegiance to the King, he was unwilling to actually take his seat. The +Assembly was under the dominion of John Dickinson, the leader of the +Proprietary Party, and was very reluctant to break finally with the Crown. +Nevertheless, it re-elected Franklin to Congress, though he alone of the +nine delegates, elected from Pennsylvania to that body, was unhesitatingly +in favor of independence. This position of isolation he was not condemned +to occupy long. At a subsequent election, the party in Pennsylvania, which +shared Franklin's views, obtained the upper hand, followed the lead of +Congress in repudiating all authority derived from the King and declared +the Proprietary Government dissolved. For a time, there was no government +of any kind in Pennsylvania for even the most elementary needs of society. +The result, however, was an impressive illustration of the fact that all +government is by no means on paper, for, at a later period of his life, +Franklin told Sir Samuel Romilly that, while this anarchical condition +lasted, order was perfectly preserved in every part of Pennsylvania, and +that no man, who should have attempted to take advantage of the situation, +for the purpose of evading the payment of a debt, could have endured the +contempt with which he would have been visited. + +The first step towards the restoration of civil government was taken by the +Committee of Safety. It advised the people of Pennsylvania to elect +delegates to a conference; they responded by doing so, and the delegates +met at Philadelphia, sat five days, renounced allegiance to the King, took +an oath of obedience to Congress and issued a call to the people to elect +delegates to meet in convention and to form a constitution. At the +election, which ensued, Franklin was one of the eight delegates elected +from Philadelphia, and, when the convention met, he was unanimously chosen +its President. On account of his duties as a member of Congress, his +attendance upon the sessions of the convention was irregular, but it was +regular enough to exert a marked influence over the proceedings of the +body. In one respect, that is in the adoption of a single legislative +chamber, the constitution framed by the convention bore the unmistakable +impress of his peculiar political ideas.[28] + +A few weeks after the Declaration of Independence was adopted, Franklin +received a long letter from Dubourg addressed to "My Dear Master," which +justified at least the inference that Vergennes leaned towards the cause of +the Colonies. Encouraged by this letter, Congress elected three envoys to +represent America in France: Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Silas +Deane. Deane was already in France. Jefferson was compelled by the ill +health of his wife to decline, and Arthur Lee, then in London, was elected +in his stead. + +After a voyage of thirty days in the _Reprisal_, commanded by Captain +Wickes, a small war-vessel in the service of Congress, Franklin reached +Quiberon Bay. Thence he proceeded by land to Nantes and from Nantes to +Paris. After his arrival at Paris, he lodged at the Hôtel d'Hambourg, in +the Rue de l'Université, until he found a home in the house at Passy placed +at his disposal by M. Donatien LeRay de Chaumont. For a time, he courted +retirement, but, as France was drawn more and more closely into concert +with the American rebels, his activity became more and more open, until the +surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga induced that country to abandon the +policy of connivance and secret assistance, which it had pursued behind the +screen, supplied by the commercial adventures of Caron de Beaumarchais, +even before Franklin landed in Europe, and to enter into the treaty of +alliance with the United States which made Adams, Lee and himself our fully +acknowledged representatives at the French Court. The circumstances, under +which the news of Burgoyne's capitulation was communicated to Franklin and +his colleagues, constitute one of the most thrilling moments in history. +The messenger, who conveyed it, was Jonathan Loring Austin, a young New +Englander, and the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of War; and he was +sent in a swift vessel for the very purpose by the State of Massachusetts. +"Whatever in thy wise providence thou seest best to do with the young man, +we beseech thee most fervently, at all events, to preserve the packet," is +the tactless petition that Dr. Cooper is said to have addressed to Heaven +on the Sunday before Austin sailed. The rumor of his coming preceded his +arrival at Passy, and, when his chaise was heard in the court of the Hôtel +de Chaumont, Deane, Arthur and William Lee, Ralph Izard, Dr. Bancroft, +Beaumarchais and Franklin went out to meet him. "Sir," said Franklin, "_is_ +Philadelphia taken?" "Yes, sir," replied Austin. At this Franklin clasped +his hands and turned as if to go back into the house. "But, sir," said +Austin, "I have greater news than that. General Burgoyne and his whole army +are prisoners of war!" The night of American adversity was now for the +first time lit up by a real augury of dawn, and the treaties of amity and +commerce and alliance between France and the United States, in the existing +state of French feeling, followed almost as a matter of course. + +When, weak from his long voyage, Franklin started out on the journey from +the seashore to Paris, which led him at one point through the forest haunts +of a bloodthirsty gang of robbers, he was seventy years of age. "Yet," he +could truly declare some ten years later to George Whatley, "had I gone at +seventy, it would have cut off twelve of the most active years of my life, +employed too in matters of the greatest importance." These were indeed +years of precious service to his country and of a fame for himself as +resplendent as any in modern history which lacks the lustre of military +glory. What Washington was to America in the field, Franklin was to her in +the foreign relations upon which it may well be doubted whether the success +of her arms did not at times depend. To obtain material aid in the form of +money and munitions of war, soldiers and fleets from the one powerful +country in Europe, which manifested a disposition to side actively with +America, was the cardinal object of American policy after the outbreak of +the Revolution, and rarely has any man ever been more richly qualified for +the accomplishment of any object than was Franklin for the accomplishment +of this. In the first place, his liberal and sympathetic nature, with its +unrivalled capacity for assimilating foreign usages and habits of thought +and feeling, slid without the slightest friction into every recess of its +French environment. This was a fact of supreme importance in the case of a +people so distinctive in point of race and temperament, and so irredeemably +wedded to their own national prepossessions and prejudices as the French. +Doubtless, Franklin was too wise a man not to have courted French favor, in +a social sense, to some extent as a matter of political policy. Then, too, +there is every reason to know that he was sincerely grateful to France for +the benefits which she showered upon his country and himself. But it was +mainly the spell of La Belle France herself, with her cordial appeal to his +delight in existence, which finally produced the state of mutual affection +that enabled him to say with truth that he loved the French and that they +loved him. What this meant to our cause we can easily divine when we +remember how wholly some of the colleagues of Franklin failed to recommend +themselves to the good will of the people, whose good will it was of the +utmost concern to America that they should conciliate, or to abstain from +untimely dissensions. The exact reverse of what Franklin said of himself +might be said of them. They disliked the French People, and the French +People disliked them.[29] More than once it required all the management of +Franklin to placate feelings that they had aroused in Vergennes, the French +Minister, by lack of tact or good judgment. On one occasion, after being +lectured by Adams, on the subject of the American paper money, held by +citizens of France, Vergennes wrote to Franklin that nothing could be less +analogous than the language of Adams to the alliance subsisting between his +Majesty and the United States. In the same letter, he asked Franklin to lay +the whole correspondence between Adams and himself before Congress, adding +that his Majesty flattered himself that that Assembly, inspired with +principles different from those which Mr. Adams had discovered, would +convince his Majesty that they knew how to prize those marks of favor which +the King had constantly shown to the United States. No choice was left to +Franklin except to comply with the request and to do what he could to +satisfy Vergennes that the sentiments of Congress and of Americans +generally were very different from those of Adams. But unfortunately, +before the correspondence between Adams and Vergennes could reach Congress, +Adams had again, by his officious conduct in another particular, elicited a +sharp rebuke from Vergennes. This correspondence, too, Vergennes requested +Franklin to lay before Congress, which Franklin did with comments not more +severe than the occasion called for, but which the pride of Adams, already +deeply infected with the jealousy of Franklin, which he shared with Arthur +Lee, so far as his manlier and wholesomer nature allowed, never fully +forgave. "He," Vergennes said of Adams, in a letter to La Luzerne, +"possesses a rigidity, a pedantry, an arrogance and a vanity which render +him unfit to treat political questions." + +After peace was restored between Great Britain and the United States, the +strictures of Adams upon Vergennes and France became so imprudent and +outspoken that Franklin wrote to Robert Morris: + + I hope the ravings of a certain mischievous madman here + against France and its ministers, which I hear of every + day, will not be regarded in America, so as to diminish + in the least the happy union that has hitherto + subsisted between the two nations, and which is indeed + the solid foundation of our present importance in + Europe. + +Four months later, Franklin, to use his own words, hazarded a mortal enmity +by making this communication to Robert R. Livingston: + + I ought not, however, to conceal from you, that one of + my Colleagues is of a very different Opinion from me in + these Matters. He thinks the French Minister one of the + greatest Enemies of our Country, that he would have + straitned our Boundaries, to prevent the Growth of our + People; contracted our Fishery, to obstruct the + Increase of our Seamen; and retained the Royalists + among us, to keep us divided; that he privately opposes + all our Negociations with foreign Courts, and afforded + us, during the War, the Assistance we receiv'd, only to + keep it alive, that we might be so much the more + weaken'd by it; that to think of Gratitude to France is + the greatest of Follies, and that to be influenc'd by + it would ruin us. He makes no Secret of his having + these Opinions, expresses them publicly, sometimes in + presence of English Ministers, and speaks of hundreds + of Instances which he could produce in Proof of them. + +All this Franklin believed to be + + as imaginary as I know his Fancies to be, that Count de + V. and myself are continually plotting against him, and + employing the News-Writers of Europe to depreciate his + Character, &c. But as Shakespear says, "Trifles light + as Air, &c." I am persuaded, however, that he means + well for his Country, is always an honest Man, often a + wise one, but sometimes, and in some things, absolutely + out of his senses. + +A clever and just flash of characterization but for the usual inability of +Franklin to refer abnormal conduct to anything short of dementia.[30] In +the latter part of the same year, Franklin again had occasion to write to +Robert Morris, + + My Apprehension that the Union between France and our + States might be diminished by Accounts from hence, was + occasioned by the extravagant and violent Language held + here by a Public Person, in public Company, which had + that Tendency; and it was natural for me to think his + Letters might hold the same Language, in which I was + right; for I have since had Letters from Boston + informing me of it. Luckily here, and I hope there, it + is imputed to the true Cause, a Disorder in the Brain, + which, tho' not constant, has its Fits too frequent. + +Apart from more general considerations, as Franklin was, at the very time +that Adams was holding this kind of discourse, soliciting more money from +Vergennes for the United States, it was natural enough that he should fear +the tendency of such ungrateful and provoking language to chill the +liberality of the French Minister. It is agreeable, however, to recollect +that in the succeeding year the able, upright and patriotic statesman, who +had to such a conspicuous degree the defects of his virtues, was so far +restored to reason, that Franklin could write to William Temple Franklin +that he had walked to Auteuil on Saturday to dine with Mr. A. &c., with +whom he went on comfortably. + +As to how far Arthur Lee succeeded in ingratiating himself with Vergennes, +the correspondence of that Minister with the French Minister in America +enables us to judge without difficulty. In one letter, he wrote that he had +too good an opinion of the intelligence and wisdom of the members of +Congress and of all true patriots to suppose that they would allow +themselves to be led astray by the representations of a man (Lee) whose +character they ought to know. + + As to Dr. Franklin [he continued], his conduct leaves + nothing for Congress to desire. It is as zealous and + patriotic, as it is wise and circumspect; and you may + affirm with assurance, on all occasions where you think + proper, that the method he pursues is much more + efficacious than it would be if he were to assume a + tone of importunity in multiplying his demands, and + above all in supporting them by menaces, to which we + should neither give credence nor value, and which would + only tend to render him personally disagreeable. + +The writer might as well have added "as is Arthur Lee." In another letter, +Vergennes stated that the four millions more that France had decided to +grant Dr. Franklin would convince Congress that they had "no occasion to +employ the false policy of Mr. Izard and Mr. Lee to procure succors."[31] + +For very different reasons, even Jay, with his admirable character, did not +achieve any success in dealing with the French people beyond the kind of +success which the French themselves damn with the phrase _succès d'estime_. +The complaint that M. Grand made of him, when he was in Spain, "that he +always appeared very much buttoned up," was hardly less applicable to him +when he was transferred to Paris as one of our Peace Commissioners. "Mr. +Jay," diarizes Adams, "likes Frenchmen as little as Mr. Lee and Mr. Izard +did. He says they are not a moral people; they know not what it is; he +don't like any Frenchman; the Marquis de Lafayette is clever, but he is a +Frenchman." + +John Laurens, too, when he came over to Paris to solicit money for the +American army, _beau sabreur_ as he was, handled the French as awkwardly as +the rest. "He was indefatigable, while he staid," Franklin wrote to +William Carmichael, "and took true Pains, but he _brusqu'd_ the Ministers +too much, and I found after he was gone that he had thereby given more +Offence than I could have imagin'd." The truth is that, until the watchful +detachment of Adams and Jay from their foreign environment became of some +service to the United States in helping to assure to them the full fruits +of their victory in the final shuffle of diplomacy over the Treaty of +Peace, Franklin after the return of Silas Deane to America was the only one +of our diplomatic representatives who can be said to have earned his salt +in France.[32] The rest, so far from promoting the objects of the French +mission, did much to jeopard its success. The United States could well have +afforded to keep them all at home and to pay them double the amount of the +salaries which were wasted upon them abroad. They either could not rise +above the limitations and prejudices of foreigners in dealing with a people +peculiarly tenacious of their own national views and characteristics, or +were too lacking in diplomatic instinct and _savoir faire_ to hold their +own grating idiosyncracies of temper and disposition in check, when it was +of the highest importance to their country that they should do so; or they +were so restive under the pre-eminence of Franklin as to be unable to +control the envy and ill-feeling, which harassed his peace, and tended to +discredit the cause, in which they were engaged. Congress did not do many +wise things in regard to our interests in France during the Revolution, but +undoubtedly it did one, when it finally brought the discord of its envoys +in that country to an end by declining to accept the resignation of +Franklin and appointing him the sole Ambassador of the United States at +Paris.[33] Under no circumstances, does his success in obtaining succor +for America from France stand out so clearly as when contrasted with the +futile missions of Arthur Lee, William Lee, Ralph Izard, Francis Dana and +John Jay to other courts than that of France. So far from obtaining any +material aid for the United States from the countries, to which they were +accredited, and should never have been sent,[34] they had to fall back upon +Franklin himself for their own subsistence; though it is only fair to them +to say that some of them were allowed by these countries too little freedom +of approach to make an impression of any kind upon them, good or otherwise. +For the bad feeling entertained by Adams, Lee and Izard towards Franklin +there is no valid reason for holding Franklin responsible. It is plain that +he did not lack the inclination to be on friendly terms with Adams; and +there is no evidence that he in any way provoked the malice which he +suffered at the hands of Arthur Lee, or the passionate animosity which he +excited in Ralph Izard. As late as 1780, after the return of Adams to +Europe as a peace commissioner, Franklin wrote to William Carmichael that +Adams and himself lived on good terms with each other, though the former, +he added, had never communicated anything of his business to him, and he +had made no inquiries of him. If Franklin did not live on good terms with +Arthur Lee, it was because no one, unless it were Adams, or Ralph Izard, +when drawn to Lee by common jealousy of Franklin, could live on good terms +with a man whose character was so hopelessly soured and perverted by +suspicion and spleen. It was doubtless with entire truth that Franklin in a +letter to William Carmichael, in which he termed Lee the most malicious +enemy that he ever had, declared that there was not the smallest cause for +his enmity. It had been inspired in England, as it had been revived in +France, simply by the brooding desire of Lee to displace Franklin. In 1771, +he made it plain in a letter from England to Samuel Adams that Franklin, in +his opinion, was not too good to be the instrument of Lord Hillsborough's +treachery in pretending that all designs against the charter of +Massachusetts had been laid aside. + + The possession of a profitable office at will, the + having a son in a high post at pleasure, the grand + purpose of his residence here being to effect a change + in the government of Pennsylvania, for which + administration must be cultivated and courted [Lee + wrote], are circumstances which, joined with the + temporizing conduct he has always held in American + affairs, preclude every rational hope that, in an open + contest between an oppressive administration and a free + people, Dr. Franklin can be a faithful advocate for the + latter. + +In another letter he intimated a suspicion that Dr. Franklin had been +"bribed to betray his trust." The motive for such communications is made +clear enough by still another letter that he sent over to Boston stating +that, while Dr. Franklin frequently assured him that he would sail for +Philadelphia in a few weeks, he believed he would not quit them till he +was gathered to his fathers.[35] The insidious calumnies that Lee sowed in +Massachusetts, when he was coveting Franklin's agency for that colony, were +only too effective for a time in creating even in the minds of such men as +Samuel Adams, John Adams, and Josiah Quincy an impression unfavorable to +Franklin's fidelity to the American cause. How little based on any real +misgivings as to the character of the man, whose place he craved, were the +innuendoes and accusations of Lee, may be inferred from his statement at +the time of the Privy Council outrage that Franklin bore the assaults of +Wedderburn "with a firmness and equanimity which conscious integrity can +inspire." In a letter to Lord Shelburne in 1776, he even spoke of Franklin +as "our _Pater Patriæ_." + +In France, the same sense of having a young man's revenue withered out by +tedious expectation led to similar misrepresentations and intrigue. This +time, the object was to bring about the transfer of Franklin from France, +where the jealousy of Lee was incessantly inflamed by his great reputation +and influence, to some other post, and the appointment of Lee himself as +his successor. If the change had not been such as to foreshadow utter ruin +to American interests in France, the letters that Arthur Lee wrote to his +brother Richard Henry Lee in the prosecution of these aims would be little +less than ludicrous. "My idea of adapting characters and places is this," +he said in one letter, "Dr. F. to Vienna, as the first, most respectable, +and quiet; Mr. Deane to Holland.... France remains the centre of political +activity, and here, therefore, I should choose to be employed." There was +but one way, he said in another letter to his brother, of bringing to an +end the neglect, dissipation, and private schemes, which he saw in every +department of the American Mission at Paris, and that was the plan he had +before suggested of appointing the Dr. _honoris causa_ to Vienna, Mr. Deane +to Holland, and Mr. Jennings to Madrid, and of leaving him (Lee) at Paris. +To Samuel Adams he wrote that he had been at the several courts of Spain, +Vienna and Berlin, and found that of France to be the great wheel that +moved them all. He would, therefore, be much obliged to Adams for +remembering that he should prefer being at the court of France. + +Lee was a man of considerable ability, though his incurable defects of +disposition and temper almost wholly deprived him of the profitable use of +it, and he was from first to last, when in Europe, loyal to the American +cause. But, if there ever was a person born under the malignant sign, +Scorpio, it was he. He was + + "More peevish, cross and splenetic + Than dog distract or monkey sick." + +In the course of his suspicious, jealous and quarrelsome life he appears to +have inflicted a venomous sting upon almost every human being that ever +crossed the path of his inordinate and intriguing ambition. In the monopoly +of intelligence and public virtue that he arrogated to himself he was not +unlike the French woman who was credited by Franklin with the assertion +that she met with nobody but herself that was always in the right. With a +few exceptions, no prominent American in France, when he was in that +country, escaped his insidious defamation. Silas Deane was the accomplice +of Beaumarchais in his effort to make the United States pay for free gifts +of the French King. Franklin was a cunning rogue ever on the watch to line +the pockets of his grandnephew, Jonathan Williams; indeed Lee did not +scruple to term him "the father of corruption"; every day gave him fresh +reasons for suspecting William Carmichael; John Paul Jones was merely the +captain of "a cruising job of Chaumont and Dr. Franklin." And so on with +the other contemporaries, whose character he did his best to tarnish with +the breath of calumny, ever actuated as he was by the sinister, +backward-spelling disposition which + + "Never gives to truth and virtue that + Which simpleness and merit purchaseth." + +What both Lee and Adams could not forgive in Franklin was the fact that, +though there were three American envoys at Paris, the French Ministry and +People would have it that there was only one, "_le digne Franklin_,"[36] +"_le plus grand philosophe du siècle_," "_l'honneur de l'Amérique, et de +l'humanité_." The wounded sense of self-importance, awakened by this fact, +assumed in Adams, except in his more extravagant moments, no worse form +than that of quickened self-assertion, or the charge that Franklin was +grown too inert, from years and physical infirmities, to conduct the +routine business of the mission with the proper degree of order and system, +or was too susceptible to social and academic flattery to keep a vigilant +eye upon the more selfish side of French policy. But in the case of Lee, +lacerated vanity not only led him along finally to the conclusion that +Deane and Franklin were both rascals, but early convinced him that all +their transactions, even the simplest, where he was concerned, were shaped +by a desire to slight or affront him, or to deprive him of his just +privileges and standing as one of the Commissioners. He had hardly been in +France a year before his perverse pen was lecturing and scolding Franklin +as if he were one of the most arbitrary and inconsiderate of men instead of +one of the most reasonable and considerate. At first, Franklin did not +reply to such letters, but his failure to reply simply supplied Lee with +another excuse for scolding. At last, Lee, after taxing him with tardiness +in settling the accounts of the Commissioners, and with keeping him in the +dark about the mission on which M. Gérard had been sent to America, +expressed the hope that he would not treat this letter from him as he had +many others with the indignity of not answering it. + + It is true [said Franklin], that I have omitted + answering some of your Letters, particularly your angry + ones, in which you, with very magisterial Airs, + school'd and documented me, as if I had been one of + your Domestics. I saw in the strongest Light the + Importance of our living in decent Civility towards + each other, while our great Affairs were depending + here. I saw your jealous, suspicious, malignant and + quarrelsome Temper, which was daily manifesting itself + against Mr. Deane, and almost every other Person you + had any Concern with: I therefore pass'd your Affronts + in Silence; did not answer but burnt your angry + Letters, and received you when I next saw you with the + same Civility as if you had never wrote them. + +These words are taken from a letter in which Franklin replied in detail to +all the grievances vented in Lee's letter. On the day before, he had +written a curter reply which gives us a good idea of what his anger was at +flood-tide. + + It is true [this reply began], I have omitted answering + some of your Letters. I do not like to answer angry + Letters. I hate Disputes. I am old, can not have long + to live, have much to do and no time for Altercation. + If I have often receiv'd and borne your Magisterial + Snubbings and Rebukes without Reply, ascribe it to the + right Causes, my Concern for the Honour & Success of + our Mission, which would be hurt by our Quarrelling, my + Love of Peace, my Respect for your good Qualities, and + my Pity of your Sick Mind, which is forever tormenting + itself, with its Jealousies, Suspicions & Fancies that + others mean you ill, wrong you, or fail in Respect for + you. If you do not cure yourself of this Temper it will + end in Insanity, of which it is the Symptomatick + Forerunner, as I have seen in several Instances. God + preserve you from so terrible an Evil: and for his sake + pray suffer me to live in quiet. + +The petition was not heeded. Cut off by his impracticable temper and the +dis-esteem of the French Ministry from any participation in the more +important transactions of the Mission, the industrious malice of Lee found +employment in accusations of peculation against the other agents of the +United States in France and in petty refinements over the proper methods of +keeping the accounts and papers of the Commissioners. Everything that he +touched threw out thorns and exuded acrid juices. Franklin might well have +said of him what he said of his brother, William Lee, that he was not only +a disputatious but a very artful man. He pursued Deane with such plausible +misrepresentations, when the latter sought justice at the hands of +Congress, that the unhappy man was finally hurried, to use Franklin's +phrase, into joining his friend, Arnold. How he harried Jonathan Williams, +we have already seen. So well understood was his litigious, malevolent +temper that, when the State of Virginia desired to purchase arms and +military stores in France, several merchants refused to have any dealings +with him, and one firm dealt with him only to be involved in the usual web +of fine-spun suspicion and controversy. + + I hope, however [wrote Franklin to Patrick Henry, at + the time Governor of Virginia, who had solicited + Franklin's assistance in the matter], that you will at + length be provided with what you want, which I think + you might have been long since, if the Affair had not + been in Hands, which Men of Honour and Candour here are + generally averse to dealing with, as not caring to + hazard Quarrels and Abuses in the settlement of their + Accounts. + +He dared not meddle, he said, with the dispute in which Lee was engaged, +"being charg'd by the Congress to endeavour at maintaining a good +Understanding with their other Servants," which was, "indeed, a hard task +with some of them," he declared. + +As his acquaintance with Lee and his brother, William Lee, extended, +Franklin became more and more wary in dealing with them. This was +illustrated in his attitude towards the papers of Thomas Morris, the +brother of Robert Morris, and the Commercial Agent of the United States at +Nantes. When this gentleman, who, according to one of his contemporaries, +"turned out the greatest drunkard the world ever produced," had duly paid +the forfeit of his bibulous life, William Lee, with the aid of an order +from the French Ministry, secured possession of all his papers, public and +private, and, when on the eve of setting out for Germany, placed the trunk +containing them sealed in the custody of Franklin. The key, Franklin told +him, he would rather have in the keeping of Arthur Lee. A correspondence +followed between Franklin and John Ross, who had obtained an order from +Congress for the delivery of the trunk to him. If it had been Pandora's +box, Franklin could not have undertaken the delivery of the papers in a +more gingerly manner. + + I am glad [he wrote to Ross], an Order is come for + delivering them to you. But as the Dispute about them + may hereafter be continued, and Papers suspected to be + embezzled by somebody; and as I have sign'd a terrible + long Receipt for the Trunk, of which I have no copy, + and only remember that it appear'd to be constructed + with all the Circumspection of the Writers Motto, _Non + incautus futuri_ and that it fill'd a Half Sheet so + full there was scarce Room for the Names of the four + Evidences he requir'd to witness it; I beg you will not + expect me to send it to you at Nantes but appoint who + you please to receive it for you here. For I think I + must deliver it before Witnesses, who may certify the + State of the Seals; nothing being more likely than that + Seals on a Trunk may rub off in the Carriage on so long + a Journey; and then I should be expos'd to the Artful + Suggestions of some who do not love me, & whom I + conceive to be of very malignant Dispositions. + +Afterwards, when Arthur Lee informed Franklin that, unless he was furnished +with money by him, he would have to give up the thought of proceeding to +Spain, Franklin replied dryly: "As I can not furnish the Expence, and there +is not, in my Opinion, any Likelihood at Present of your being received at +that Court, I think your Resolution of returning forthwith to America is +both wise and honest." And, even when he supposed that he was finally rid +of the gad-fly, which had annoyed him so long, and that Lee was off for +America, with his poisoned ink-well and busy pen, Franklin took pains that +he should not have everything his own way, though a thousand leagues +distant. "There are some Americans returning hence," he wrote to Samuel +Cooper, "with whom our people should be upon their guard, as carrying with +them a spirit of enmity to this country. Not being liked here themselves, +they dislike the people; for the same reason, indeed, they ought to +dislike all that know them." + +Three days later, he wrote to Joseph Reed, of Pennsylvania, a letter in +which, after denying a false statement made about the writer by Lee, he +said, "He proposes, I understand, to settle in your Government. I caution +you to beware of him; for, in sowing Suspicions and Jealousies, in creating +Misunderstandings and Quarrels among friends, in Malice, Subtilty, and +indefatigable industry, he has I think no equal." A few days later, he +wrote to William Carmichael, "Messrs. Lee and Izard are gone to L'Orient, +in order to embark in the _Alliance_ together, but they did not travel +together from hence. No soul regrets their departure. They separately came +to take leave of me, very respectfully offering their services to carry any +dispatches, etc." + +But gone the gad-fly was not yet. After Lee reached L'Orient, the officers +and men of the _Alliance_ refused to weigh anchor until certain claims of +theirs to wages and prize money were complied with, and, while John Paul +Jones, their captain, was away at Paris, engaged in an effort to hasten the +payment of the prize-money, Captain Peter Landais, acting under the advice +of Arthur Lee and Commodore Gillon, took possession of the ship and sailed +off for America. As soon as the news of the mutiny came to Franklin, he +suspected that Arthur Lee was at the bottom of it. + + I have no doubt [he wrote to Samuel Wharton, in regard + to Landais] that your suspicion of his Adviser is well + founded. That Genius must either find or make a Quarrel + wherever he is. The only excuse for him that his + Conduct will admit of, is his being at times out of his + Senses. This I always allow, and am persuaded that if + some of the many Enemies he provokes do not kill him + sooner he will die in a madhouse. + +The sequel of this high-handed proceeding afforded Franklin another +opportunity to question Lee's mental soundness. The _Alliance_ was not long +out before Landais exhibited such flightiness that its passengers deposed +him, and placed the ship in command of its first lieutenant. Commenting on +the incident, Franklin wrote to Samuel Cooper: + + Dr. Lee's accusation of Capt. Landais for Insanity was + probably well founded; as in my Opinion would have been + the same Accusation, if it had been brought by Landais + against Lee; For tho' neither of them are permanently + mad, they are both so at times; and the Insanity of the + Latter is the most Mischievous. + +How truly high-handed the rape of the _Alliance_ was, will be realized, +when the reader is told that at the time Landais had been deprived of the +captaincy of the _Alliance_, upon the charge of gross misconduct in the +glorious engagement between the _Serapis_ and the _Bon Homme Richard_, and +was looking forward to a court-martial in America upon specifications +involving a capital offence; that he had abandoned the ship, and that +Jones, who had won imperishable honor and renown in the conflict between +the _Serapis_ and the _Bon Homme Richard_, had been placed in command of +her by Franklin, and had been in command of her for eight months; and that +Franklin had in a letter to Landais sternly refused to restore her to him. + +Of William Lee, Franklin had, as we have just seen, very much the same +opinion that he had of Arthur Lee. When he talked to Franklin of nominating +Jonathan Williams, his grandnephew, and Mr. Lloyd in the place of Thomas +Morris and himself as the Commercial Agents of the United States at Nantes, +Franklin wrote to Williams: "I question whether there be Flesh enough upon +the Bone for two to pick. I doubt its being worth your while to accept of +it. I did not thank him for mentioning you because I do not wish to be much +oblig'd to him and less to be a little oblig'd." + +Not long after this, Franklin had less cause to think well of William Lee +than ever. Upon representations being made by Ralph Izard and him to the +three Commissioners, Arthur Lee, Deane and Franklin, that, though they had +been appointed Ministers to the courts of Berlin, Vienna and Florence by +Congress, no provision for their expenses had reached them, the three +Commissioners asked what sums they would require. William Lee replied that +he could not exactly compute in advance what he would need, but that, if he +was empowered to draw upon the banker of the Commissioners, he would +certainly only draw from time to time for such sums as were absolutely +necessary; and that it was therefore a matter of little importance at what +amount the credit was fixed. "It would however look handsome & +confidential," he said, "if the sum were two Thousand Louis." Thereupon, +Franklin tells us, the Commissioners "did frankly but unwarily give the +Orders." Soon afterwards, Deane and Franklin were informed that William Lee +and Izard had gone directly to the banker of the Commissioners, and drawn +out the whole amount of the credit, and had deposited it to their own +account exclusively. After that, even an order from Congress, empowering +William Lee and Izard to draw upon the Commissioners for their expenses at +foreign courts, was unavailing to open Franklin's purse strings. Doubtless, +he wrote with calm irony to the Committee on Foreign Affairs at home, +Congress, when it passed its resolution, intended to supply the +Commissioners with funds for meeting the drafts of William Lee and Izard. +And, to make things still worse for the disappointed beneficiaries of the +resolution, he further said: "I could have no intention to distress them, +because I must know it is out of my Power, as their private Fortunes and +Credit will enable them at all times to pay their own Expences." + +Arthur Lee had taken good care to protect himself against any such +afterclaps. In a formal letter to him, refusing to accede to his suggestion +that no orders should be drawn upon the banker of the Commissioners, unless +signed by all three of the Commissioners, Franklin told him flatly that he +did not choose to be obliged to ask Mr. Lee's consent, whenever he might +have occasion to draw for his subsistence, as that assent could not be +expected from any necessity of a reciprocal compliance on Mr. Franklin's +part, Mr. Lee having secured his subsistence by taking into his own +disposition 185,000 livres, and his brother, by a deception on the +Commissioners, 48,000. + +Ralph Izard, of South Carolina, was very closely linked with Arthur Lee in +Franklin's mind. Though appointed by Congress Commissioner to the court of +the Grand Duke of Tuscany at Florence, this court refused to receive him +for fear of offending England, and he remained in Paris during the entire +period of his appointment. In a letter to James Lovell, Franklin stated +that he had made it a constant rule to answer no angry, affronting or +abusive letters, of which he had received many, and long ones, from Mr. Lee +and Mr. Izard. The hostility of Izard to Franklin, due in the main to the +same causes as Arthur Lee's, was whetted partly by the fact that he was not +consulted, when the treaty of alliance was entered into between the +American Commissioners and France, and partly by the fact that Franklin +refused to honor some of his pecuniary applications. In a letter from Passy +to Francis Hopkinson, Franklin, as we have seen, said that he deserved +Izard's enmity because he might have avoided it by paying him a compliment +which he neglected, but elsewhere in his correspondence he rests this +enmity upon substantially the same grounds as that of Arthur Lee. When +Izard assailed him, because he had not conferred with him in relation to +the treaty of alliance, Franklin replied that he would give his letter a +full answer when he had the honor of seeing him. "But," he said, "I must +submit to remain some days under the Opinion you appear to have form'd not +only of my poor Understanding in the general Interests of America, but of +my Defects in Sincerity, Politeness & Attention to your Instructions." + +It is doubtful whether a letter in which, in reply to an application for +money, he reminded Izard of the latter's own pecuniary independence, was +ever sent; but part of it is too pointed not to bear quotation. After +dwelling upon the many calls upon the funds in the hands of the +Commissioners, it goes on in these words: + + In this Situation of our Affairs, we hope you will not + insist on our giving you a farther Credit with our + Banker, with whom we are daily in danger of having no + farther Credit ourselves. It is not a Year since you + received from us the sum of Two Thousand Guineas, which + you thought necessary on Acct of your being to set + out immediately for Florence. You have not incurr'd the + Expence of that Journey. You are a Gentleman of + Fortune. You did not come to France with any Dependence + on being maintained here with your Family at the + Expence of the United States, in the Time of their + Distress, and without rendering them the equivalent + Service they expected. + +Izard seems to have had the kind of temper that heats as readily as iron +but cools off as slowly as a footbrick, wrapped up in flannels.[37] +Speaking of the indignity, to which Franklin had been subjected in his +sight before the Privy Council, he said: "When Dr. Franklin was so +unmercifully bespattered by Wedderburn, I sat upon thorns; and had it been +me that was so grossly insulted, I should instantly have repelled the +attack, in defiance of every consequence." It is not unlikely that he would +have been as good as his word, so prompt was the second, who had borne the +challenge from Temple to Whately, to give free play to his irascible and +imperious nature. But Graydon is our authority for the statement, too, that +as long as four years after Izard had returned in the _Alliance_ from +France to the United States, the name of Franklin could not be mentioned in +his presence without hurrying him into a state of excitement. + +Altogether, our readers will agree with us, we are sure, in thinking that +few things in our national history are calculated to leave a more painful +impression upon the mind than the conduct of some of the men, who were +supposed to represent the United States abroad, while Franklin, in spite of +the jarring discords, of which he was the innocent author, was manfully +struggling with the responsibilities which belonged in part to others, but +never really rested upon any but his own old shoulders (as he termed them). +By character and temperament, in some instances, they were conspicuously +unfitted for the delicate tasks of diplomacy, and were too raw and rigidly +set in their personal and national prejudices besides ever to succeed in +repressing their dislike for the French. There can be no doubt, Jay aside, +that they would have quarrelled with each other as rancorously as they did +with Franklin but for the cohesion created by their common jealousy of him. +How indefensible their attitude towards him was becomes all the more +apparent when we recollect that rarely has any man ever been endowed with a +mind or nature better fitted to disarm malice than those of Franklin. It is +a hard judgment, not to be formed without due allowance for the extent to +which the testimony of history is always suborned by the glamour of a +great reputation, but it is nevertheless, we believe, only a just judgment, +to declare that Franklin spoke the simple truth when he wrote to William +Carmichael, "Lee and Izard are open, and, so far, honourable Enemies; the +Adams, if Enemies, are more covered. I never did any of them the least +Injury, and can conceive no other Source of their Malice but Envy." The +excessive respect, shown him in France by all ranks of people, he said in +the same letter, and the little notice taken of them, was a mortifying +circumstance, but it was what he could neither prevent nor remedy. + +This "excessive respect," or justly deserved fame, as the biographer of +Franklin might call it, was another thing which contributed to Franklin's +brilliant success at the Court of France. When he arrived in that country, +he was no stranger there. His two previous visits to it had made him well +acquainted with Turgot, Quesnay, Dupont de Nemours, the elder Mirabeau, +Dubourg and Morellet and the other members of the group, known as the +Physiocrats, whose speculative passion for Agriculture was one of the +active intellectual forces of the time. His literary and scientific +attainments had likewise won him the favor of other famous Frenchmen. These +are facts of no slight importance, when we recall the extent to which the +currents of French thought, on the eve of the French Revolution, were fed +and directed by men of letters and philosophers. When Franklin found +himself in France, for the third time, he was a member of the Royal Society +at London and the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, and had been honored +with academic degrees not only by Yale, Harvard and William and Mary in his +own country, but by Oxford in England and St. Andrews in Scotland.[38] An +edition of his scientific works had been translated into French by his +friend Dubourg, and his _Way to Wealth_ had been translated into the same +language, and distributed broadcast by bishops and curés among the members +of their flocks as incentives to industry and frugality. It was in France, +too, that D'Alibard had verified the sublime hypothesis of Franklin by +drawing down the lightning from the clouds. Moreover, before he left +England at the end of his second mission to that country, his activity and +prominence in resisting the arbitrary measures of the British Ministry had +made his political influence and standing thoroughly familiar to the French +Cabinet, which had for many years kept a close watch upon every movement or +event that portended a revolt of the American Colonies. Along with these +solid claims to the attention and respect of the French people were certain +other circumstances that strongly tended to heighten the fame of Franklin. +It was the era when the modern Press was beginning to assert its new-born +power, and the fur cap, one of the badges of the mediæval printer, that he +wore, was hardly necessary to remind the newspapers of that day, with all +their facilities for rouging public reputation by artful and persistent +publicity, that Franklin was first of all a printer. It was also the era +when the idea of the universal brotherhood of men of all classes and races +made an uncommonly strong appeal to democratic and humanitarian impulses. +Such an age could readily enough regard a man like Franklin as a true +citizen of the world, a veritable friend of man and a torch-bearer of the +new social and political freedom. It was also the era when it was the mode +to indulge dreams of primitive beatitude and idyllic simplicity, and around +no figure could such dreams more naturally gather than that of the +venerable and celebrated man, whose thin white hair, worn straight without +wig or powder, plain dress and frank, direct speech seemed to make him the +ideal exemplar of a state of society devoid of monarch, aristocrat or +hierarch.[39] + +That Franklin, when he came to Paris, as the representative of a country, +which was not only at war with the hereditary enemy of France, but had +fearlessly avowed general political sentiments, that France herself was +eager to avow, should, with his fame, simple manners and social charm, have +excited for a time the surpassing enthusiasm which he did is not +surprising; for what the French ardently admire they usually festoon with +fireworks and crown with flowers; but that this enthusiasm should have +continued, so far as we can see, wholly unabated for nine years, is a +surprising thing, indeed, when we recollect how inclined the fickle +populace of every country is to beat in its hour of inevitable reaction the +idol before which it has prostrated itself in its hour of infatuation. +While in France, Franklin was not simply the mode, he was the rage. Learned +men from every part of Europe thought a visit to Paris quite incomplete, if +it did not include a call upon him. Even the Emperor Joseph, "a King by +trade," as he once termed himself, intrigued to meet him _incognito_. Among +the many letters that he received from individuals, distinguished or +obscure, who sought to flatter him or to draw upon his wisdom or treasured +knowledge, was Robespierre--then a young advocate at Arras--who sent him a +copy of his argument in defence of the lightning rod before the Council of +Artois, and Marat who, true enough to his future, was investigating the +physical laws of heat and flame. In the letter to Franklin, by which the +copy of his argument was accompanied, Robespierre spoke of Franklin as "a +man whose least merit is to be the most illustrious _savant_ of the world." +To have a Franklin stove in its fireplace, with a portrait of Franklin on +the wall above it, grew to be a common feature of the home of the wealthier +householder in Paris. His spectacles, his marten fur cap, his brown coat, +his bamboo cane became objects of general imitation. Canes and snuff-boxes +were carried _à la Franklin_. Portraits, busts and medallions of him were +multiplied without stint. Among the busts were some in Sèvres china, set in +blue stones with gold borders, and among the medallions were innumerable +ones made of clay dug at Passy. + + The clay medallion of me [Franklin wrote to Sarah + Bache] you say you gave to Mr. Hopkinson was the first + of the kind made in France. A variety of others have + been made since of different sizes; some to be set in + the lids of snuff-boxes, and some so small as to be + worn in rings; and the numbers sold are incredible. + These, with the pictures, busts, and prints (of which + copies upon copies are spread everywhere) have made + your father's face as well known as that of the moon, + so that he durst not do anything that would oblige him + to run away, as his phiz would discover him wherever he + should venture to show it. + +It was computed that some two hundred different kinds of representations of +his face were turned out to be set in rings, watches, snuff-boxes, +bracelets, looking-glasses and other chattels. One print of him is said to +have made the fortune of the engraver. Particularly striking is the +testimony of John Adams to the fame of Franklin when in France, which is +part of the remarkable letter published by him in the _Boston Patriot_ on +May 11, 1811, in answer to Franklin's strictures on his conduct in France: + + His reputation was more universal than that of Leibnitz + or Newton, Frederick or Voltaire; and his character + more beloved and esteemed than any or all of them.... + His name was familiar to government and people, to + kings, courtiers, nobility, clergy, and philosophers, + as well as plebeians, to such a degree that there was + scarcely a peasant or a citizen, a _valet de chambre_, + coachman or footman, a lady's chambermaid, or a + scullion in a kitchen, who was not familiar with it, + and who did not consider him as a friend to human kind. + When they spoke of him, they seemed to think he was to + restore the golden age. + +To the pen of Adams we are also indebted for an account of the first public +meeting between Voltaire and Franklin, which also testified with such +dramatic _éclat_ to the place occupied by Franklin in the hearts of the +French people. This was at the hall of the Academy of Science in Paris. + + Voltaire and Franklin were both present, and there + presently arose a general cry that M. Voltaire and M. + Franklin should be introduced to each other. This was + done, and they bowed and spoke to each other. This was + no satisfaction; there must be something more. Neither + of our philosophers seemed to divine what was wished or + expected; they, however, took each other by the hand. + But this was not enough; the clamor continued, until + the explanation came out. "_Il faut s'embrasser, à la + Française._" The two aged actors upon this great + theatre of philosophy and frivolity then embraced each + other, by hugging one another in their arms, and + kissing each other's cheeks, and then the tumult + subsided. And the cry immediately spread through the + whole kingdom, and, I suppose, over all Europe, _"Qu'il + était charmant de voir embrasser Solon et Sophocle!"_ + +A few weeks later Voltaire was dead, and, in the fall of the same year, his +Apotheosis was celebrated by the Lodge of Nine Sisters--a Freemason's Lodge +in Paris. An account of this memorable occasion was subsequently published +by the officers of the Lodge. Madame Denis, the niece of Voltaire, and the +Marchioness of Villette, whom he called his _Belle et Bonne_, and under +whose roof he died, were present. After various addresses and strains of +orchestral music, a clap of thunder was heard. Then + + the sepulchral pyramid disappeared, great light + succeeded the gloom which had prevailed till now, an + agreeable symphony sounded in the place of the mournful + music, and an immense picture of the apotheosis of + Voltaire was disclosed. The picture represented + Corneille, Racine and Molière above Voltaire as he + leaves his tomb. Truth and Beneficence present him to + them. Envy pulls at his shroud, in the wish to hold him + back, but is driven away by Minerva. Higher up may be + seen Fame, publishing the triumph of Voltaire. + +Crowns were then laid upon the heads of La Dixmerie, the orator, Gauget, +the painter, and Franklin, who lifted them from their heads and laid them +at the feet of Voltaire's image. + +Madame Campan in her _Memoirs_ mentions another occasion on which the most +beautiful of three hundred women was designated to place a crown of laurel +on Franklin's head, and to kiss him on each cheek. + +Add to all these evidences of popular admiration and affection the intimate +footing maintained by Franklin in so many French homes, and we begin to +understand how powerfully his public and social standing helped to swell +the resistless tide of sympathy and enthusiasm which bore down all +opposition to the French alliance. + +But far more than to his mere congeniality with the social spirit of the +French People, or to his literary and scientific fame, or to his kinship +with all the liberal tendencies of the eighteenth century in America and +Europe, was the success of Franklin at the French court due to those +general attributes of mind and character which he brought to every exigency +of his private or public life: his good sense, his good feeling, his +perfect equipoise, his tact, his reasonableness, his kindly humor. It was +these things which, above everything else, enabled him to surmount all the +trying difficulties of his situation, and to give to the world the most +imposing example of fruitful pecuniary solicitation that it has ever known. +The firm hold that he obtained upon the esteem and good will of Vergennes, +"that just and good man" he terms him in one of his letters, was but the +merited reward of personal qualities which invite, secure and retain esteem +and good will under all human conditions. Vergennes, who held the keys of +the French money-chest, and directed the policies of France, respected, +trusted and liked Franklin, because Franklin, at any rate, duly recognized +and acknowledged the generous motives which had, in part, inspired French +intervention in the American contest, because he exhibited a considerate +appreciation of the sacrifices which it cost France, still bleeding from +her last struggle with Great Britain, to make such large and repeated loans +to the United States, and because his tactful and discreet applications +for pecuniary assistance for his country were never marked by disgusting +importunity or thinly veiled menaces. How true this is we have already +seen; and its truth is still further confirmed by the testimony of +Franklin's successor, Jefferson, who, when asked in Paris, whether he +replaced Franklin, was in the habit of replying, "No one can replace him, +sir; I am only his successor." After stating the circumstances, including +his own association with Franklin at Paris, which had convinced him that +the charge of subservience to France, made against Franklin, had not a +shadow of foundation, Jefferson pays this impressive tribute to him: + + He possessed the confidence of that Government in the + highest degree, insomuch, that it may truly be said, + that they were more under his influence than he under + theirs. The fact is, that his temper was so amiable and + conciliatory, his conduct so rational, never urging + impossibilities, or even things unreasonably + inconvenient to them, in short, so moderate and + attentive to _their_ difficulties as well as our own, + that what his enemies called subserviency, I saw was + only that reasonable disposition, which, sensible that + advantages are not all to be on one side, yielding what + is just and liberal, is the more certain of obtaining + liberality and justice. Mutual confidence produces, of + course, mutual influence, and this was all which + subsisted between Dr. Franklin and the government of + France. + +To Jefferson we are also indebted for the statement that, when he was in +France, there appeared to him more respect and veneration attached to the +character of Franklin than to that of any other person in the same country, +foreign or native. + +The volume of multifarious tasks performed by Franklin in France was +immense. The most valuable service rendered by him to the United States was +in obtaining from the French King the pecuniary aids which helped Congress +to defray the expenses of the Revolutionary War. It has been truly said +that he, and not Robert Morris, was the real financier of the Revolution. +Until the triumph of the patriot cause was assured, he was the only one of +the American envoys in Europe whose pecuniary solicitations met with any +material success. Sometimes even such sums as were obtained by others +outside of France were more attributable to his indirect influence than to +their own direct efforts. No matter upon whom Congress might recklessly +draw drafts, they were certain to come around to the aged negotiator, who +appeared to be able to secure money from France even when France had no +money for herself. He might be told that a loan which he had just procured +from Vergennes was positively the last that France could make, and, yet, +when he was compelled by desperation at home to give another reluctant rub +to his magic lamp, there always stood the French servitor with his chest of +gold. The aggregate amount of the loans and gifts made by France to the +United States was on February 21, 1783, little short of forty-three +millions of francs. It was these loans and gifts, transformed into +munitions of war and military supplies, which again and again infused +reviving life into the fainting bosom of his country, and enabled her +soldiers to turn an undaunted face to her foes. How a man of Franklin's +years could have borne up under such frightful anxieties as those imposed +upon him by the pecuniary demands of Congress and her other foreign envoys, +to say nothing of additional burdens, it is difficult to understand. In the +second year after his arrival in France, when drafts began to pour in on +him from Congress, he reminded it that the envoys had not undertaken to do +more than to honor its bills for interest on certain specified sums; and +this reminder was frequently repeated. It might as well have been syllabled +to the winds. Though most of the limited cargoes of tobacco and other +products remitted by Congress as a basis of credit fell into the hands of +the ever-watchful British cruisers, almost every ship brought over bills +upon the envoys or large orders for clothing, arms and ammunition. At one +time, they had notice that bills for interest had been drawn on them to the +amount of two million and a half, when they did not have a fifth of that +sum on deposit with their banker. In a letter to the Committee on Foreign +Affairs in 1779, Franklin, who was really our sole envoy for the purpose of +paying such bills, enumerates the great quantities of clothing, arms, +ammunition and naval stores, which the envoys had sent over to America, the +heavy drafts paid by them that Congress had drawn in favor of officers +returning to France, or of other persons, the outlays of the envoys for the +benefit of American prisoners, the amounts advanced by them to other agents +of the United States, the freight charges paid by them and the sums +expended by them in fitting out Captain Conygham and the _Raleigh_, +_Alfred_, _Boston_, _Providence_, _Alliance_, _Ranger_ and other frigates. +"And now," he concluded, "the Drafts of the Treasurer of the Loans coming +very fast upon me, the Anxiety I have suffered, and the Distress of Mind +lest I should not be able to pay them, has for a long time been very great +indeed." This was but one of the earlier crises in the financial experience +which led Franklin to say that his seemed to be the Gibeonite task of +drawing water for all the congregation of Israel. The point of the +observation becomes still more manifest when the reader is told that drafts +were also frequently drawn on Franklin by the European agents of the +Committee of Commerce of Congress, and that even the foreign agents of +individual States of the Union, finding that no American abroad but he +seemed to have any credit, applied to him for assistance in effecting loans +for their principals. Indeed, one agent of the United States, a Mr. +Bingham, did not scruple, without authority from Congress, or any other +source, to notify Franklin that the _Deane_ and the _General Gates_ had +just arrived at Martinique and were in need of overhauling and provisions, +and that he would have to draw upon him for the expense. This was too much +even for Franklin's patience, and, when Mr. Bingham's bills were returned +protested, that gentleman loudly complained that his credit had been +effectually ruined. And, as the necessities of Congress became greater and +greater, it almost wholly ceased to recognize that there were any +limitations upon its right to draw upon Franklin, or that there was even +any reason why it should notify him that such drafts were drawn. It simply +drew, hit or miss. For pursuing this course in regard to him, there was at +least the excuse that, no matter how freely it drew upon him, he somehow +contrived to preserve the credit of Congress unstained. But Congress had no +such excuse for drawing bills in this reckless manner, as it did too often, +upon John Jay, Henry Laurens or John Adams. It is a laughable fact that, +when some of its bills drawn upon Henry Laurens reached Europe, the drawee, +who had never arrived in Holland, the country to which he was accredited, +at all, was a prisoner in the Tower. As none of the other envoys, upon whom +Congress drew, had any resource but to beg Franklin to pay the drafts, +these drafts might as well have been drawn upon him in the first instance. +No wonder that, with this accumulation of responsibility upon his +shoulders, Franklin should have written to John Jay in Spain in these +terms: + + But the little Success that has attended your late + applications for money mortified me exceedingly; and + the Storm of Bills, which I found coming upon us both + has terrified and vexed me to such a Degree, that I + have been deprived of Sleep, and so much indispos'd by + continual anxiety, as to be render'd almost incapable + of writing. + +This very letter, however, bears witness to his remarkable aptitude for +dunning without incurring its odious penalties. Overcoming his almost +invincible reluctance, he said, he had made another application to the +French Court for more money, and had been told to make himself easy as he +would be assisted with what was necessary. Indeed, so generous was its +conduct on this occasion that, when Franklin, in part payment for the loan, +proposed that Congress should provision the French army in America with +produce demanded from the States, his Majesty declined the proposal, saying +that to furnish his army with such a large quantity of provisions as it +needed might straiten Congress. "You will not wonder at my loving this good +prince," Franklin concluded. + +Amid all the cruel embarrassments of his situation, however, he never +abated one jot of heart or hope, nor for one moment lost sight of the +imperial future which he so clearly foresaw for the country that was adding +sixty thousand children to her numbers annually. In this same letter, he +let Jay know that in his opinion no amount of present distress should +induce the United States to make the concessions to Spain that she was +disposed to hold out as the price of her assistance. "Poor as we are," his +indomitable spirit declared, "yet, as I know we shall be rich, I would +rather agree with them to buy at a great Price the whole of their Right on +the Mississippi, than sell a Drop of its waters. A Neighbour might as well +ask me to sell my Street Door." Loyal, too, to Congress he remained from +first to last. The worst that he was willing to say in a letter to Thomas +Ruston of its rash conduct in flooding the world with bills that for all it +knew might never be paid was a quiet, "That body Is, as you suppose, not +well skill'd in Financing." + +Less than two months after his letter to Jay, we find him again appealing +to Vergennes for pecuniary aid with which to enable Congress to co-operate +with the French forces in America, and, a few weeks later, when the +vitality of the American cause was at its lowest point, he again takes up, +on fresh calls from Congress, the same tedious refrain. The letter written +by him to Vergennes on this occasion is one of his supplicatory +masterpieces. He lays before the French Minister evidence that the spirit +of the United States is unbroken, and that the recent success of the +British in Carolina was chiefly due to the lack of the necessary means for +"furnishing, marching, and paying the Expence of Troops sufficient to +defend that Province." He tells him that Lafayette had written that it was +impossible to conceive, without seeing it, the distress that the troops had +suffered for want of clothing; and that Washington, too, had written to him +that the situation of the United States made one of two things essential to +them, a peace, or the most vigorous aid of their allies, particularly in +the article of money. For the aid, so necessary in the present conjuncture, +he said, they could rely on France alone, and the continuance of the King's +goodness towards them. And then he concluded with these affecting but not +altogether artless words: + + I am grown old. I feel myself much enfeebled by my late + long Illness, and it is probable I shall not long have + any more Concern in these Affairs. I therefore take + this Occasion to express my Opinion to your Excellency, + that the present Conjuncture is critical; that there is + some Danger lest the Congress should lose its Influence + over the people, if it is found unable to procure the + Aids that are wanted; and that the whole System of the + New Governt in America may thereby be shaken; that, if + the English are suffer'd once to recover that Country, + such an Opportunity of effectual Separation as the + present may not occur again in the Course of Ages; and + that the Possession of those fertile and extensive + Regions, and that vast Sea Coast, will afford them so + Broad a Basis for future Greatness, by the rapid growth + of their Commerce, and Breed of Seamen and Soldiers, as + will enable them to become the _Terror of Europe_, and + to exercise with impunity that Insolence, which is so + natural to their Nation, and which will increase + enormously with the Increase of their Power. + +Hard upon the heels of this letter came a letter from John Adams, inquiring +whether Franklin could furnish funds for paying bills to the amount of ten +thousand pounds sterling which had been drawn by Congress on Adams. +Franklin replied by saying that he had not yet received a positive answer +to his last appeal for aid to the French King, but that he had, however, +two of the Christian Graces, Faith and Hope, though his faith was only that +of which the Apostle speaks--the evidence of things not seen. In truth, he +declared, he did not see at that time how so many bills drawn at random on +the Ministers of Congress in France, Spain and Holland were to be paid. But +all bills drawn upon them by Congress should be accepted at any risk; and +he would accordingly do his best, and, if those endeavors failed, he was +ready to break, run away or go to prison with Adams, as it should please +God. His endeavors were successful, so startlingly successful that +Vergennes informed him that his Majesty, to give the States a signal proof +of his friendship, had resolved to grant them the sum of six millions, not +as a loan, but as a free gift. But the announcement was accompanied by the +significant statement that, as the supplies previously purchased in France +by the United States, were supposed to be of bad quality, the Ministers +would themselves take care of the purchase, with part of the gift, of such +articles as were urgently needed in America, and the balance, remaining +after these purchases, was to be drawn for by General Washington upon M. +d'Harvelay, Garde du Trèsor Royal. "There was no room to dispute on this +point," Franklin wrote to Samuel Huntington, "every donor having the right +of qualifying his gifts with such terms as he thinks proper"; but the +restrictions upon the gift would seem, after all, to have been waived. +Shortly after the six millions was promised, Colonel Laurens, who was +supposed by Washington to be peculiarly competent to state the needs of the +American army, arrived in France, and to him Franklin delegated the task of +making purchases for Congress with part of the sum. Franklin was already +supporting Adams, Dana, Jay and Carmichael on the proceeds of his +persuasive approaches to the French King, and, at best, the arrival of +Laurens would have meant little except another ministerial mouth to feed. +Unfortunately, however, it signified much more to Franklin's peace. Before +returning to America, with two millions and a half of the six millions, +Laurens made such free use of the remainder that Franklin, unable to meet +bills, with which he was threatened, was compelled to write to Adams not to +accept any more bills that were expected to be paid by him without notice +to him, and to Jay that, if the bills drawn upon him some months before +could not be paid by him, they would have to go to protest. "For," Franklin +said, "it will not be in my Power to help you. And I see that nothing will +cure the Congress of this Madness of Drawing upon the Pump at Aldgate, but +such a Proof that its Well has a Bottom." + +To make things worse, though Congress continued to draw bills upon Franklin +after the gift of the six millions, it deprived him of the ability to use +that fund by forbidding any portion of it to be used without its order. +Franklin by prompt action did succeed in intercepting a part of the six +millions, which Laurens had taken to Holland, and which was about to follow +him to America. Speaking of this in a letter to William Jackson, who had +come over with Laurens, and was very angry with Franklin for detaining the +amount, Franklin wrote, "I see, that nobody cares how much I am distressed, +provided they can carry their own Points. I must, therefore, take what care +I can of mine, theirs and mine being equally intended for the Service of +the Public." It would have been well for Jackson if he had let the matter +rest there, but he did not, and had the temerity to write to Franklin a +saucy letter to which he replied in these terms: + + These Superior Airs you give yourself, young Gentleman, + of Reproof to me, and Reminding me of my Duty do not + become you, whose special Department and Employ in + Public Affairs, of which you are so vain, is but of + yesterday, and would never have existed but by my + Concurrence, and would have ended in Disgrace if I had + not supported your enormous Purchases by accepting your + Drafts. The charging me with want of oeconomy is + particularly improper in _you_, when the only Instance + you know of it is my having indiscreetly comply'd with + your Demand in advancing you 120 Louis for the Expence + of your Journey to Paris and when the only Instance I + know of your oeconomizing Money is your sending me + three Expresses, one after another, on the same Day, + all the way from Holland to Paris, each with a Letter + saying the same thing to the same purpose. + +One of the transactions, mentioned in this correspondence, is a good +illustration of the pecuniary "afterclaps," to use Franklin's term, to +which Franklin was frequently subjected. He had agreed to pay for goods for +the United States to the amount of fifteen thousand pounds. Instead of the +purchases amounting to fifteen thousand pounds, they amounted to fifty +thousand, and he persistently refused to pay for them. Jackson then hurried +express to him, urged that the goods were bought by order of Colonel +Laurens, that they were on shipboard, and that, if Franklin did not pay for +them, they would have to be relanded and returned, or sold; which would be +a disgrace, he insisted, to the United States. In the end, Franklin +accepted the bills for the whole amount, and applied to the French Ministry +for the money with which to pay for them. The application was a +particularly disagreeable one to him, not only because all the fiscal +calculations of the French Government for the year had been completed, but +because no part of the purchase price of the goods would be expended in +France. At first, the grant was absolutely refused, but at length Franklin +obtained it, and hoped that the difficulty was over. It was not. +Afterwards, the officers of the ship decided that she was overloaded, and +the goods were transferred to two other ships, whose owners required +Franklin to either buy the ships, or to pay them a freight bill nearly +equal to the value of the ships. This whole transaction was bad enough, but +William Jackson at least had the grace to notify Franklin that the bills in +this instance were about to descend upon him before their descent. This, we +know from a mildly reproachful letter, written by Franklin to John Paul +Jones, a Mr. Moylan was not kind enough to do when he drew upon Franklin +for nearly one hundred thousand livres for supplies ordered by Jones for +the _Ariel_. + +These are but typical instances of the financial complications in which +Franklin was involved from time to time while he was drawing water for all +the congregation of Israel. Long after their date, bills were still making +his life miserable. + + This serves chiefly to acquaint you [he wrote on one + occasion to John Adams] that I will endeavour to pay + the Bills that have been presented to you drawn on Mr. + Laurens. But you terrify me, by acquainting me that + there are yet a great number behind. It is hard that I + never had any information sent me of the Sums drawn, a + Line of Order to pay, nor a Syllable of Approbation for + having paid any of the Bills drawn on Mr. Laurens, Mr. + Jay or yourself. + +To John Jay about the same time he wrote, "The cursed Bills, as you justly +term them, do us infinite Prejudice." In a letter to John Adams, he speaks +of "the dreaded Drafts." At times it looked as if the stream of French +bounty was at last exhausted. "With the million mentioned," he wrote to +John Adams in substantially the same terms as he had written to Robert +Morris two days before, "I can continue paying to the end of February, and +then, if I get no more I must shut up shop." This was in January, 1782, +when France, in addition to assisting the United States with a fleet and +army, had advanced great additional sums to them since the beginning of the +preceding year. At this time, for very shame Franklin could scarcely pluck +up courage enough to make another pecuniary application to the French +Ministry. In giving in a letter to John Jay his reasons for not holding out +the hope of pecuniary relief to him, he said, "I had weary'd this friendly +& generous Court with often repeated after-clap Demands, occasioned by +these unadvised (as well as ill advis'd) & therefore unexpected Drafts, and +was ashamed to show my Face to the Minister." In the same letter, Franklin +also said: "We have been assisted with near 20 Millions since the Beginning +of last Year, besides a Fleet and Army; and yet I am oblig'd to worry +[them] with my Solicitations for more, which makes us appear insatiable." + +But the most interesting passage in this letter is the following: "You +mention my Proposing to repay the Sum you want in America. I had try'd that +last year. I drew a Bill on Congress for a considerable Sum to be advanced +me here, and paid in provisions for the French Troops. My Bill was not +honoured!" Worst of all, when Bills from Congress still showered upon him, +after its promise that no more bills would be drawn on him subsequent to a +fixed date, he began to suspect that the drawing was still going on, and +that the bills were antedated. To no American was the heedless reliance of +Congress upon the generosity of France more mortifying than to him. He +repeatedly suggested the obligation of his own country to look more to +self-help and less to the aid of her friendly and generous ally, and, at +times, in his characteristic way, he would demonstrate arithmetically how +easy it would be for the United States to support the burden of the war +themselves if they would only keep down the spirit of luxury and +extravagance at home, and cease to buy so many foreign gewgaws and +superfluities and so much tea. "In my opinion, the surest way to obtain +liberal aid from others is vigorously to help ourselves," he wrote to +Robert R. Livingston. "It is absurd," he said later in another letter to +Robert Morris, "the pretending to be lovers of liberty while they (the +American people) grudge paying for the defence of it." He was generously +prompt always also to ascribe any temporary interruption to the flow of +French subsidy to the pressing necessities of France herself. Full, too, +always he was of simple-hearted gratitude to France for the princely help +that she had given to the American cause. No one knew better than he that +this help originated partly in selfish policy, and was continued partly +because it had been extended too liberally already to be easily +discontinued. "Those, who have begun to assist us," he shrewdly observed to +Jay, when counselling him that every first favor obtained from Spain was +_tant de gagné_, "are more likely to continue than to decline." Every +appeal that he ever made in his life to liberality in any form took the +bias of self-interest duly into account. But he was merely true to his +settled principle that human character is an amalgam of both unselfish and +selfish motives, when, realizing that the aid rendered by France to the +United States originated partly in the glow of a generous enthusiasm for +the cause of human liberty and fraternity, he wrote to Robert R. Livingston +on August 12, 1782, a letter in which, after stating that the whole amount +of the indebtedness, then due by the United States to France, amounted to +eighteen million livres, exclusive of the Holland loan guaranteed by the +King of France, he said: + + In reading it [a statement of the account] you will + discover several fresh marks of the King's goodness + towards us, amounting to the value of near two + millions. These, added to the free gifts before made to + us at different times, form an object of at least + twelve millions, for which no returns but that of + gratitude and friendship are expected. These, I hope, + may be everlasting. + +In a subsequent letter to Vergennes, Franklin referred to the King as our +"Friend and Father." But naturally enough deep-seated gratitude found its +most impressive utterance when the long and bloody war was at an end, the +independence of the United States fully established and Franklin ready, as +he wrote to Robert R. Livingston, to say with old Simeon, "Now lettest thou +thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." + + May I beg the favour of you, Sir [he wrote to + Vergennes, when he was soon to leave France forever], + to express respectfully for me to his Majesty, the deep + Sense I have of all the inestimable Benefits his + Goodness has conferr'd on my Country; a Sentiment that + it will be the Business of the little Remainder of Life + now left me, to impress equally on the Minds of all my + Countrymen. My sincere Prayers are, that God may shower + down his Blessings on the King, the Queen, their + children, and all the royal Family to the latest + Generations! + +It would be irksome to detail all the loans obtained by Franklin from the +French King, and all the terrifying drafts drawn upon him. Profuse from +first to last as were the bills, which he was called upon to pay, he +appears to have met them all, with a few exceptions, whether drawn upon +Adams, Jay, Laurens or himself. Nor, when an extortioner attempted to +perpetrate an outrage upon the United States, did he fail to oppose him +with a wit quite as keen as his and with a spirit far more resolute. Such +a skinflint seems to have been De Neufville, of Amsterdam, who offered on +one occasion to borrow money for the United States, provided that their +representatives hypothecated to his firm, in the name of the whole Congress +of the Thirteen United States, as security for the loan, all the lands, +cities, territories and possessions of the said Thirteen States, present or +prospective. After mercilessly analyzing in a letter to John Adams the +unconscionable covenants by which this tremendous hypothecation was to be +accompanied, Franklin ended with these observations: + + By this time, I fancy, your Excellency is satisfy'd, + that I was wrong in supposing J. de Neufville as much a + Jew as any in Jerusalem (a reference to what he had + said in a former letter) since Jacob was not content + with any per cents, but took the whole of his Brother + Esau's Birthright, & his Posterity did the same by the + Cananites, & cut their Throats into the Bargain; which, + in my Conscience, I do not think M. J. de Neufville has + the least Inclination to do by us,--while he can get + anything by our being alive. + +The immediate occasion for this letter was the refusal of De Neufville to +allow the goods which had bred trouble between Franklin and William Jackson +to be delivered to the agents of the United States until a claim for +damages that he had preferred against the United States was satisfied. "We +have, you observe" Franklin had written in an earlier letter to John Adams, +"our Hands in the Lyon's Mouth; but if Mr. N. is a Lyon, I am a Bear, and I +think I can hug & gripe him till he lets go our Hands." And he was as good +as his word, and let De Neufville know that, if he did not deliver the +goods, the bills drawn by him on Franklin for the price, though accepted, +would not be paid. A few days later, in another letter to Adams with +respect to the same matter, Franklin said in regard to a proposal of +settlement made by De Neufville, "I think that the less we have to do with +that Shark the better; his jaws are too strong, his teeth too many and his +appetite immensely voracious." Before the episode was ended, De Neufville +was only too glad to dispatch his son to Paris to beseech the bear to relax +his hug. + +There was still another reason why the arrival of bills from America should +be feared by Franklin. They were drawn in three sets each, and there was +constant danger, as the sets came in at different times, of the same bill +being paid more than once. In fact, repeated efforts were fraudulently made +to palm off duplicates and triplicates as firsts upon Franklin. To shut off +frauds, the minutest inspection of the bills, as they were presented for +payment, was indispensable, and, for this task, Franklin, Congress having +wholly ignored his request for a secretary, had no one to help him but +Temple and the French clerk at fifty louis a year. The task was rendered +especially laborious by the fact that a host of the bills was drawn by +Congress in very small amounts for the payment of interest abroad. + +Far less tedious, of course, but still burdensome enough, was the labor of +copying the dispatches that left Franklin's hands. At one time, the +Atlantic was so alive with British cruisers that a dispatch on its way to +Congress from France had almost as little chance of escape as a jettisoned +dog in a shark-infested sea. + + Adams [stated one of the letters in 1777 of our envoys + in France], by whom we wrote early this summer, was + taken on this coast, having sunk his dispatches. We + hear that Hammond shared the same fate on your coast. + Johnson, by whom we wrote in September, was taken going + out of the channel, and poor Captain Wickes (of the + _Reprisal_) who sailed at the same time, and had + duplicates, we just now hear foundered near + Newfoundland, every man perishing but the cook. + +It was a batch of papers tossed into the ocean, and snatched up by a nimble +British sailor, before they sank, that first apprised the British Ministry +of the treaty for an alliance hatching between Holland and the United +States, and led Great Britain to declare war promptly against Holland. With +such perilous conditions to face, Franklin's dispatches were sometimes +copied as often as seven times. Besides the copy retained by him, and the +copy sent to Congress, other copies were later sent to Congress by the next +ships leaving France for the United States. + +Another most onerous function imposed upon Franklin, until the appointment +of Thomas Barclay, a merchant, as Consul-General to France, was that of +purchasing supplies for Congress and fitting out ships. Special provision +for this function should, of course, have been made by Congress, so as to +leave him free to give his attention to what he termed his political +duties, but it was not until after he had repeatedly begged Congress to +relieve him from it that Congress first appointed for that purpose Colonel +Palfrey, who was lost at sea, on his way over to France, and then Barclay. +In the meantime, Franklin had suffered infinite annoyance in the +performance of duties for which he had no time, and insisted that he had no +knowledge or training. Writing to Jonathan Williams about the dispatch of +certain goods to America, he said: + + At this Distance from the Ports, and unacquainted as I + am with such Affairs, I know not what to advise about + getting either that Cloathing or the small Arms and + Powder at L'Orient or the Cloth of Mr. Ross transported + to America; and yet everybody writes to me for Orders, + or Advice, or Opinion, or Approbation, which is like + calling upon a blind Man to judge of Colours. + +Writing later to Williams about the same matter, when it had assumed a +still more vexatious aspect, he peremptorily turned down a project laid +before him by Williams, saying with an ebullition of impatience quite +unlike the ordinary tenor of his even temper, "I have been too long in hot +Water, plagu'd almost to Death with the Passions, Vagaries, and ill Humours +and Madnesses of other People. I must have a little Repose." + +Another office performed by Franklin, though no special commission for the +purpose was ever issued to him by Congress, was that of a Judge in +Admiralty. A large quantity of blank commissions for privateers having been +sent to him by Congress shortly after his arrival in France, he delivered +them to cruisers, fitted out in the ports of France, and manned by +smugglers, who knew every creek and cove on the English coast which they +had so often visited by night as well, to use a simile employed by one of +Franklin's correspondents, as they knew the corners of their beds. The +alarm and loss created by these privateers was no mean offset to the +destructive efficiency of the British cruisers. One privateer, the _Black +Prince_, took in the course of three months more than thirty sail. Such was +the apprehension excited by the depredations of American privateers that +the seacoasts of England were kept in a constant state of panic, and the +premium rate on marine insurance was largely enhanced. As prizes were +brought into French harbors, the papers seized in them were examined by +Franklin for the purpose of passing upon their legality and the liability +of the prizes to sale. It was also under the patronage of Franklin and +Deane that the _Reprisal_, the first American ship to fire a gun or capture +a prize in European waters, the _Lexington_, a sloop-of-war, of fourteen +guns, fitted out by Congress, and commanded by Captain Johnson, the +_Dolphin_, a cutter of ten guns, purchased by our envoys from M. de +Chaumont, and the _Surprise_, a cutter, commanded by the doughty Captain +Gustavus Conyngham, inflicted such injury upon English commerce, including +the capture of the Lisbon packet by Captain Wickes, that the French +Ministry was compelled to heed the remonstrances of Lord Stormont, the +English Minister, so far as to make a deceitful show, in one form or +another, of vindicating the outraged neutrality of France. But, when the +flimsiest ruses were allowed by the French Ministry to circumvent its +interdiction of the abuse of its ports by American ships, with prizes in +tow, and Captain Conyngham and his crew, after passing a few days in luxury +in a French prison, found means in some unaccountable manner to escape, +just as two English men-of-war were coming over to ask that they be +delivered to them as pirates, there was little fear anywhere along the +French coast, or in the breasts of our envoys, that any sternly vigorous +embargo was likely to be laid upon the privateering activities of the +United States by anything except the naval energy of England itself. + +At this time, Franklin was eager to retaliate the destruction and suffering +wantonly inflicted upon some of the defenceless seacoast towns of America +by the British. He, therefore, advised Congress to put three frigates into +the very best fighting trim, and to send them, loaded with tobacco, as if +they were common merchantmen, to Nantes or Bordeaux, but with instructions, +when they reached the one or the other port, to make off suddenly for some +unsuspecting British port, pounce upon the vessels in its harbor, levy +contributions, burn, plunder and get away before any harm could be done to +them by a counterstroke. + + The burning or plundering of Liverpool or Glasgow [he + said] would do us more essential service than a million + of treasure and much blood spent on the continent. It + would raise our reputation to the highest pitch, and + lessen in the same degree that of the enemy. We are + confident it is practicable, and with very little + danger. + +In a letter to Lafayette, too, Franklin stated that the coasts of England +and Scotland were extremely open and defenceless, and that there were many +rich towns in those countries near the sea "which 4 or 5000 Men, landing +unexpectedly, might easily surprize and destroy, or exact from them a heavy +Contribution taking a part in ready Money and Hostages for the rest." He +even calculated in livres the amounts that might be demanded of Bristol, +Bath, Liverpool, Lancaster and other English towns. + +But the most eventful thing that Franklin ever did in relation to American +activity on the sea was to invite John Paul Jones to take command of a fine +frigate that the envoys had ordered from Holland, but had been compelled by +the vigilance of Great Britain to turn over to France, when but partially +built. While at Brest, Jones received a confidential note from Franklin +telling him that the King had asked the loan of him to the French navy for +a while, and wished him to take command of the frigate. "She is at +present," he said, "the property of the King; but, as there is no war yet +declared, you will have the commission and flag of the United States, and +act under their orders and laws." The frigate, however, was far from being +completed, and the thought of a stranger being placed in command of her was +highly irritating to French naval officers with a mind to promotion. +Chafing under the delay and uncertainty, occasioned by these circumstances, +Jones, whose remarkable literary facility, despite his lack of education, +is at least one illustration of the truth of Dogberry's saying that reading +and writing come by nature, wrote impatient appeals to the French Minister, +Franklin, the members of the Royal Family and the King himself. + +While in this humor, his eye happened to fall upon a maxim in one of Poor +Richard's Almanacs, "If you would have your business done, go; if not, +send." He heeded the suggestion, proceeded to Versailles and secured an +order for the purchase of the forty-gun ship, which, in honor of his +monitor, he called the _Bon Homme Richard_. What she did, old as she was, +with her heroic commander, and her medley crew of Americans, Irish, +English, Scotch, French, Portuguese, Maltese and Malay sailors, before she +relaxed her dying clutch upon the _Serapis_, and sank, immortalized by a +splendid victory, to the bottom of the ocean, there is no need for the +biographer of Franklin to tell. It is enough to say that for Franklin Jones +ever entertained a feeling little short of passionate reverence. "The +letter which I had the honor to receive from your Excellency to-day ... +would make a coward brave," was his reply to one of Franklin's wise and +humane letters of instruction. This letter is evidence enough that Franklin +was not so incensed by the ruthless conduct at times of the British in +America as to be lost to the clemency of his own abstract views about the +proper limits of warfare. + + Altho' [he said] the English have wantonly burnt many + defenceless Towns in America, you are not to follow + this Example, unless where a Reasonable Ransom is + refused; in which Case, your own generous feelings, as + well as this Instruction, will induce you to give + timely Notice of your Intention, that sick and ancient + Persons, Women and Children, may be first removed. + +The relief of American prisoners in England was another thing which +continually taxed the attention of Franklin during the Revolutionary War. +"I was sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not," was a reproach that no +one of them could justly address to him. His nature was a truly +compassionate one, and, in few respects, does it show to greater advantage +than in his unceasing efforts to secure the exchange of his unhappy +countrymen, confined at Portsmouth and Plymouth, or, that failing, to +provide them with all the pecuniary succor in his power, in addition to +that so generously extended to them by many kind hearts in England.[40] In +his friend, David Hartley, a man, whose peaceful and humane instincts even +the vilest passions of war could not efface, he had an agent in a position +to reach the ear of the English Ministry for the purpose of promoting the +exchange of prisoners. For different reasons, the task was a painfully slow +one. In the beginning, all American prisoners were committed to prison upon +the charge of high treason, a charge entirely inconsistent with the idea of +exchange. Besides, England was reluctant to relinquish the advantage that +she had, until the treaty of alliance between France and America was +consummated, in the fact that American ships had nowhere to confine their +prisoners except under their own hatches. They tried to meet this +difficulty by releasing English prisoners on parole on their each promising +that they would secure the release of an American prisoner, but the English +Admiralty, after some hesitation, finally refused to surrender a single +American prisoner in exchange for such paroled Englishmen. Commenting upon +this fact, along with another incident, Franklin wrote to James Lovell, +"There is no gaining anything upon these Barbarians by Advances of Civility +or Humanity." At last, however, several cartels were agreed upon, and he +enjoyed the great happiness of seeing some hundred or so American captives +brought over to France and released. He was still, however, to incur a +great disappointment when, owing to the fear on the part of Holland of +provoking English resentment, the five hundred prisoners, transferred to +Holland by John Paul Jones, after his engagement with the _Serapis_, had to +be exchanged for French instead of American prisoners. The French Ministry +promised to make this disappointment good by advancing to Franklin an equal +number of English prisoners taken by French ships, but the English +Ministry promptly met this promise by refusing to exchange American +prisoners for any English prisoners except such as had been captured by +American ships. It was also a great disappointment to Franklin that he +could not induce the English Ministry to give its assent to a formal +proposition from him that prisoners, taken by either country, should be +immediately released upon the understanding that an equal number of +prisoners held by the other should also be released. The high-minded +conduct of Hartley, inspired in part by the hope that lenient treatment of +American prisoners might help to re-unite the two countries, was all the +more admirable, when contrasted with the harsh words, in which Franklin +sometimes in his letters to him inveighed against the English King, +Parliament and People. It is inconceivable that even Hartley would not have +gradually wearied of well-doing, if his perfect knowledge of Franklin's +benevolent nature had not taught him how to make liberal allowances for his +friend's occasional gusts of indignation. + +This indignation was usually visited upon the English King and Ministry, +but upon one occasion it was visited upon the English people as well. + + It is now impossible [he wrote to Hartley] to persuade + our people, as I long endeavoured, that the war was + merely ministerial, and that the nation bore still a + good will to us. The infinite number of addresses + printed in your gazettes, all approving this conduct of + your government towards us, and encouraging our + destruction by every possible means, the great majority + in Parliament constantly manifesting the same + sentiments, and the popular public rejoicings on + occasion of any news of the slaughter of an innocent + and virtuous people, fighting only in defence of their + just rights; these, together with the recommendations + of the same measures by even your celebrated moralists + and divines, in their writings and sermons, that are + cited approved and applauded in your great national + assemblies; all join in convincing us, that you are no + longer the magnanimous and enlightened nation, we once + esteemed you, and that you are unfit and unworthy to + govern us, as not being able to govern your own + passions. + +Indeed, in this letter Franklin even told Hartley that, if the resentment +of the English people did not speedily fall on their ministry, the future +inhabitants of America would detest the name of Englishman as much as the +children in Holland did those of Alva and Spaniard. But, scold as he might +England and her rulers, he deeply appreciated the magnanimity of the good +man, who even took pains to see that sums placed in his hands by Franklin +were duly applied to the relief of the prisoners for whose liberty he +strove so disinterestedly. Referring in one of his letters to Hartley to +two little bills of exchange that he had sent to him for this purpose, he +said, "Permit me to repeat my thankful Acknowledgments for the very humane +and kind part you have acted in this Affair. If I thought it necessary I +would pray God to bless you for it. But I know he will do it without my +Prayers." + +Correspondingly stern was the rebuke of Franklin for the heartless knave, +Thomas Digges, equal even to the theft of an obolus placed upon the closed +eyelids of a dead man as the price of his ferriage across the Styx--who +drew upon Franklin in midwinter for four hundred and ninety-five pounds +sterling for the relief of the American prisoners, and converted all but +about thirty pounds of the sum to his own personal use. "We have no Name in +our Language," said Franklin in a letter to William Hodgson, "for such +atrocious Wickedness. If such a Fellow is not damn'd, it is not worth while +to keep a Devil." + +Besides Hartley, to say nothing of this William Hodgson, a merchant, who +performed offices for Franklin similar to those of Hartley, there was +another Englishman whose humanity with regard to American prisoners +elicited the grateful acknowledgments of Franklin. This was Thomas Wren, a +Presbyterian minister at Portsmouth, who was untiring in soliciting +contributions from his Christian brethren in England, and applying the sums +thus obtained by him, as well as the weekly allowances sent to him by +Franklin, to the wants of American prisoners in Forton Prison. "I think +some public Notice," Franklin wrote to Robert R. Livingston, "should be +taken of this good Man. I wish the Congress would enable me to make him a +Present, and that some of our Universities would confer upon him the Degree +of Doctor." The suggestion bore fruit, Congress sent Wren a vote of thanks, +and the degree of Doctor in Divinity was conferred upon him by Princeton +College. He, too, did not need the prayers of Franklin to receive the +blessings reserved for the few rare spirits who can hear the voice of the +God of Mercy even above the tumult of his battling children. + +There were many other engrossing claims of a public or quasi-public nature +upon Franklin's attention in France. In the earlier stages of the +Revolutionary War, he was fairly besieged by foreign officers eager to +share in its peril and glory. Several of those recommended by him to +Congress--such as Steuben--gave a good account of themselves in America, +but the number of those, who had no special title to his recommendation, +was so great, that his ingenuity and sense of humor were severely strained +to evade them or laugh them off. + + You can have no Conception [he wrote to a friend] how I + am harass'd. All my Friends are sought out and teiz'd + to teize me. Great officers of all Ranks, in all + Departments; Ladies, great and small, besides professed + Sollicitors, worry me from Morning to Night. The Noise + of every Coach now that enters my Court terrifies me. I + am afraid to accept an Invitation to dine abroad, being + almost sure of meeting with some Officer or Officer's + Friend, who, as soon as I am put in a good Humour by a + Glass or two of Champaign, begins his Attack upon me. + Luckily I do not often in my sleep dream myself in + these vexatious Situations, or I should be afraid of + what are now my only Hours of Comfort. If, therefore, + you have the least remaining Kindness for me, if you + would not help to drive me out of France, for God's + sake, my dear friend, let this your 23rd Application be + your last. + +The friend to whom this letter was written was a Frenchman, and the lecture +that Franklin read to him in it on the easy-going habits of his countrymen +in giving recommendations is also worthy of quotation: + + Permit me to mention to you [he said] that, in my + Opinion, the natural complaisance of this country often + carries People too far in the Article of + _Recommendations_. You give them with too much Facility + to Persons of whose real Characters you know nothing, + and sometimes at the request of others of whom you know + as little. Frequently, if a man has no useful Talents, + is good for nothing and burdensome to his Relations, or + is indiscreet, Profligate, and extravagant, they are + glad to get rid of him by sending him to the other end + of the World; and for that purpose scruple not to + recommend him to those that they wish should recommend + him to others, as "_un bon sujet, plein de mérite_," + &c. &c. In consequence of my crediting such + Recommendations, my own are out of Credit, and I can + not advise anybody to have the least Dependence on + them. If, after knowing this, you persist in desiring + my Recommendation for this Person, who is known neither + to _me_ nor to _you_, I will give it, tho', as I said + before, I ought to refuse it. + +The subject was one that repeatedly awakened his humorous instincts. + + You can have no conception of the Arts and Interest + made use of to recommend and engage us to recommend + very indifferent persons [he wrote to James Lovell]. + The importunity is boundless. The Numbers we refuse + incredible: which if you knew you would applaud us for, + and on that Account excuse the few we have been + prevail'd on to introduce to you. But, as somebody + says, + + "Poets lose half the Praise they would have got, + Were it but known what they discreetly blot." + +The extent to which Silas Deane yielded to the solicitations of eager +candidates abroad for military honor was one of the things that helped to +destroy his standing with Congress. A second letter was written by Franklin +to Lovell in which he had a word of extenuation for Deane's weakness in +this respect. + + I, who am upon the spot [he said] and know the infinite + Difficulty of resisting the powerful Solicitations here + of great Men, who if disoblig'd might have it in their + Power to obstruct the Supplies he was then obtaining, + do not wonder, that, being a Stranger to the People, + and unacquainted with the Language, he was at first + prevail'd on to make some such Agreements, when all + were recommended, as they always are, as _officiers + expérimentés_, _braves comme leurs épées_, _pleins de + Courage, de Talents, et de Zèle pour notre Cause_, &c. + &c. in short, mere Cesars, each of whom would have been + an invaluable Acquisition to America. + +Franklin even had the temerity to draft this _jeu d'esprit_ to suit the +character of the more extreme class of applications made to him for +military employment, and it was actually used at times according to William +Temple Franklin. + + The bearer of this, who is going to America, presses me + to give him a Letter of Recommendation, tho' I know + nothing of him, not even his Name. This may seem + extraordinary, but I assure you it is not uncommon + here. Sometimes, indeed one unknown Person brings + another equally unknown, to recommend him; and + sometimes they recommend one another! As to this + Gentleman, I must refer you to himself for his + Character and Merits, with which he is certainly better + acquainted than I can possibly be. I recommend him + however to those Civilities, which every Stranger, of + whom one knows no Harm, has a Right to; and I request + you will do him all the good Offices, and show him all + the Favour that, on further Acquaintance, you shall + find him to deserve. + +An ill-balanced man might have fretted himself into an angry outbreak or a +state of physical decline under the exasperation of such importunities, but +none of the petty annoyances of Franklin's position were too rough to +withstand the smoothing effect of his unctuous humor. It was like the oil +that he was in the habit of carrying around with him in the hollow joint of +a bamboo cane during the period of his life when he was testing the +tranquillizing effect of oil upon ruffled water. + +At times, however, the unreasonableness of some of the applicants was too +much even for Rabelais in his easy chair. + + First [he wrote to a M. Lith], you desired to have + Means procur'd for you of taking a Voyage to America + "_avec sureté_"; which is not possible, as the Dangers + of the Sea subsist always, and at present there is the + additional Danger of being taken by the English. Then + you desire that this may be _sans trop grandes + Dépenses_, which is not intelligible enough to be + answer'd, because, not knowing your Ability of bearing + expences, one can not judge what may be _trop grandes_. + Lastly, you desire Letters of Address to the Congress + and to General Washington; which it is not reasonable + to ask of one who knows no more of you, than that your + name is Lith, and that you live at Bayreuth. + +Another applicant, who thirsted for military renown, was one, Louis +Givanetti Pellion, "ci-devant Garde du Corps de S. M. le Roi de Sardaigne, +aujourd'hui Controlleur de la Cour de S. Mo susdite." "I know how," this +gentleman wrote, "to accommodate myself to all climates, manners, +circumstances, and times. I am passionately fond of travel, I love to see +the great world, its armies and navies. Neither cards, nor wine nor women +have any influence over me; but a ship, an army, long voyages, all these +are Paradise to me." + +It was also Franklin's lot to receive many letters of inquiry about the New +World from individuals in Europe, who were thinking of migrating to America +for peaceable purposes. What of its climate, its trade, its people, its +laws? These were some of the questions relating to the New Eldorado which +these individuals wished answered. To all who questioned him about the +opportunities held out by America, when he did not simply refer the +questioners to Crèvecoeur's "Letters from an American Farmer," his +answers were substantially the same. The emigrants to America would find a +good climate, good air, good soil, good government, good laws and liberty +there, but no Lotus Land. One Reuben Harvey wrote to him from Cork that +about one hundred poor Irish tradesmen and husbandmen desired to settle in +America. Franklin replied sententiously, "They will go to a Country where +People do not Export their Beef and Linnen to import Claret, while the Poor +at home live on Potatoes and wear Rags. Indeed America has not Beef and +Linnen sufficient for Exportation because every man there, even the +poorest, eats Beef and wears a Shirt." + +Numerous letters came to him from authors inviting his literary criticism, +or asking him to accord to them the honor of permitting them to dedicate +their works to him. Allamand, the Warden of the forests and waters of the +Island of Corsica, wished to know from him what canals there were in +America. None, he replied, unless a short water-way, cut, it was said, in a +single night across a loop formed by a long bend in Duck Creek, in the +State of Delaware, could be called such. Projectors of all kinds solicited +his views about their several projects, sane or crack-brained. Sheer +beggars, as we have already seen, were likewise among his correspondents. +One, La Baronne de Randerath, tells him that she has been advised by the +doctors to take her husband to Aix, and, as her justification for +requesting a loan from Franklin for the purpose, she mentions that her +husband and Franklin are both Masons, though members of different lodges. +Another letter requests him to exercise his influence with the Minister of +Marine in behalf of the writer, a sea captain, who wishes to be discharged +from the King's service. Dartmouth College, Brown University, Princeton +College and Dickinson College all appealed to him for his aid in their +efforts to secure money or other gifts abroad. In a word, he was not only +world-famous but paid fully all the minor as well as major penalties of +world-fame. + +How curdled by the animosities of the Revolutionary War was the milk of +human kindness even in such an amiable breast as that of Franklin, we have +already had reason enough to know. His nature yielded slowly to the intense +feelings, aroused by the long conflict between Great Britain and her +Colonies, but it was equally slow to part with them when once inflamed. The +most notable thing about his attitude towards Great Britain, after the +first effusion of American blood at Lexington, was the inexorable firmness +with which he repelled all advances upon the part of England that fell +short of the recognition of American Independence. When the English +Ministry fully realized that Great Britain was not waging war against a few +rebellious malcontents but against a whole people in arms, overture after +overture was informally made to Franklin by one English emissary or +another, in the effort to dissolve the alliance between France and the +United States, and to restore, as far as possible, the old connection +between Great Britain and America. Among the first of these emissaries was +Franklin's good friend, James Hutton. Franklin received him with the most +affectionate kindness, but a letter, which he wrote to Hutton, after Hutton +had returned to England, showed how entirely fruitless the journey of the +latter had been. A peace, Franklin said, England might undoubtedly obtain +by dropping all her pretensions to govern America, but, if she did not, +with the peace, recover the affections of the American people, it would be +neither a lasting nor a profitable one. To recover the respect and +affection of America, England must tread back the steps that she had taken +and disgrace the American advisers and promoters of the war, with all those +who had inflamed the nation against America by their malicious writings; +and all the ministers and generals who had prosecuted the war with such +inhumanity. A little generosity, in the way of territorial concessions +added to the counsels of necessity, would have a happy effect. For +instance, Franklin said, if England would have a real friendly as well as +able ally in America, and avoid all occasions of future discord, which +would otherwise be continually arising along its American frontiers, it +might throw in Canada, Nova Scotia and the Floridas. + +Hutton was succeeded by William Pulteney, a member of Parliament. All of +his propositions were predicated upon the continued dependence of America. +Every proposition, Franklin let him know, which implied the voluntary +return of America to dependence on Great Britain was out of the question. +The proper course for Great Britain, in his judgment, was to acknowledge +the independence of the United States, and to enter into such a treaty of +peace, friendship and commerce with them as France itself had formed. The +concluding words of Franklin's letter were hardly necessary to convince +Pulteney of the hopelessness of his task. "May God at last," they ran, +"grant that Wisdom to your national Councils, which he seems long to have +deny'd them, and which only sincere, just, and humane Intentions can merit +or expect." Ten days before this letter was written, the American envoys +had been presented to the French King. Then followed David Hartley and Mr. +George Hammond, the father of the George Hammond, who, many years +afterwards, became Minister Plenipotentiary from England to the United +States. When they arrived at Paris, it was only to find that the treaty of +alliance between France and the United States had already been signed, and +to learn soon afterwards that one of its clauses obliged the United States +to make common cause with France, in case England declared war against her. +How authentic were the credentials of the next emissary it is impossible to +say, but Franklin was entirely confident that he came over to France under +the direct patronage of George III. The circumstances were these. One +morning, a lengthy letter was thrown into a window of Franklin's residence +at Passy, written in English, dated at Brussels, and signed Charles de +Weissenstein. The letter conjured Franklin in the name of the Just and +Omniscient God, before whom all must soon appear, and by his hopes of +future fame, to consider if some expedient could not be devised for ending +the desolation of America and preventing the war imminent in Europe. It +then declared that France would certainly at last betray America, and +suggested a plan for the union of England and America. Under the plan, +among other things, judges of the American courts were to be named by the +King, and to hold their offices for life, and were to bear titles either as +peers of America, or otherwise, as should be decided by his Majesty; there +were to be septennial sessions of Congress, or more frequent ones, if his +Majesty should think fit to call Congress together oftener, but all its +proceedings were to be transmitted to the British Parliament, without whose +consent no money was ever to be granted by Congress, or any separate State +of America to the Crown; the chief offices of the American civil list were +to be named in the plan, and the compensation attached to them was to be +paid by America; the naval and military forces of the Union were to be +under the direction of his Majesty, but the British Parliament was to fix +their extent, and vote the sums necessary for their maintenance. It was +also proposed by the letter that, to protect Franklin, Washington, Adams, +Hancock and other leaders of the American Revolution from the personal +enmity in England, by which their talents might otherwise be kept down, +they were to have offices or pensions for life at their option. The promise +was also made that, in case his Majesty, or his successors, should ever +create American peers, then those persons, or their descendants, were to be +among the first peers created, if they desired. Moreover, _Mr._ Washington +was to have immediately a brevet of lieutenant-general, and all the honors +and precedence incident thereto, but was not to assume or bear any command +without a special warrant, or letter of service for that purpose, from the +King. + +The writer further asked for a personal interview with Franklin for the +purpose of discussing the details of the project, or, he stated, if that +was not practicable, he would be in a certain part of the Cathedral of +Notre Dame on a certain day at noon precisely, with a rose in his hat, to +receive a written answer from Franklin which he would transmit directly to +the King himself. Franklin laid the letter before his colleagues, and it +was agreed that it should be answered by him, and that both it and the +answer should be laid before Vergennes, and that the answer should be sent +or kept back as Vergennes believed best. The French Minister decided that +it had best not be sent. At the hour fixed for the interview, however, an +agent of the French police was on hand, and he reported that a gentleman, +whose name he afterwards ascertained to be an Irish one by tracking him to +his hotel, did appear at the appointed time, and, finding no one to meet +him, wandered about the Cathedral, looking at the altars and pictures, but +never losing sight of the place suggested for the tryst, and often +returning to it, and gazing anxiously about him as if he expected some one. +The scornful tone of the letter, drafted by Franklin, which is not unlike +one of the scolding speeches, with which the Homeric heroes expressed their +opinions of each other, leaves little room for doubt that he truly believed +himself to be assailing no less a person than the bigoted King himself. +After some savage thrusts, which remind us of those aimed by Hamlet at +Polonius behind the arras, he bursts out into these exclamatory words: + + This proposition of delivering ourselves, bound and + gagged, ready for hanging, without even a right to + complain, and without a friend to be found afterwards + among all mankind you would have us embrace upon the + faith of an act of Parliament! Good God! An act of your + Parliament! This demonstrates that you do not yet know + us, and that you fancy we do not know you; but it is + not merely this flimsy faith, that we are to act upon; + you offer us _hope_, the hope of PLACES, PENSIONS, and + PEERAGES. These, judging from yourselves, you think are + motives irresistible. This offer to corrupt us, Sir, is + with me your credential, and convinces me that you are + not a private volunteer in your application. It bears + the stamp of British court character. It is even the + signature of your King. + +The next bearer of the olive branch, who came over to Paris, came under +very different auspices. This was William Jones, afterwards Sir William +Jones, who was at the time affianced to Anna Maria Shipley. He did not come +as the representative of the King or his Ministers, but as the +representative of the generous and patriotic Englishmen, who had cherished +the same dream of world-wide British unity as Franklin himself, and whose +sacrifices in behalf of their fellow-Englishmen in America should be +almost as gratefully remembered by us as the Continental soldiers who +perished at Monmouth or Camden. Draping his thoughts with academic terms, +he submitted a paper to Dr. Franklin entitled _A Fragment from Polybius_ in +which England, France, the United States and Franklin are given names +borrowed from antiquity, and various suggestions are made for the +settlement of the existing controversy between Great Britain and America. +England becomes Athens, France, Caria, America, the Islands, and Franklin, +Eleutherion; and Jones himself is masked as an Athenian lawyer. + + This I _know_ [observes the latter-day Athenian] and + positively pronounce, that, while Athens is Athens, her + proud but brave citizens will never _expressly_ + recognize the independence of the Islands; their + resources are, no doubt, exhaustible, but will not be + exhausted in the lives of us and of our children. In + this resolution all parties agree. + +There should be, the writer suggested, "a perfect coordination between +Athens and the Thirteen United Islands, they considering her not as a +parent, whom they must obey, but as an elder sister, whom they can not help +loving, and to whom they shall give pre-eminence of honor and co-equality +of power." Other suggestions were that the new constitutions of the Islands +should remain intact, but that, on every occasion, requiring acts for the +general good, there should be an assembly of deputies from the Senate of +Athens, and the Congress of the Islands, who should fairly adjust the whole +business, and settle the ratio of the contributions on both sides; that +this committee should consist of fifty Islanders and fifty Athenians, or of +a smaller number chosen by them, and that, if it was thought necessary, and +found convenient, a proportionate number of Athenian citizens should have +seats, and the power of debating and voting on questions of common concern +in the great assembly of the Islands, and a proportionable number of +Islanders should sit with the like power in the Assembly at Athens. The +whole reminds the reader of the classical fictions to which the first +Parliamentary reporters were driven by press censorship. The paper, drafted +by Jones, was little more than a mere literary exercise, prompted by +ingenuous enthusiasm, but we may be sure that it kindled in Franklin very +different feelings from those aroused in him by the insidious appeal of +Charles de Weissenstein. + +The shortcomings, which Franklin is supposed by his enemies to have +exhibited in France with respect to the duties of his post, require but +little attention. Apart from a lack of clerical neatness and system, such +as might more justly be imputed as a serious reproach to a book-keeper or +clerk, they rest upon evidence easily perverted by enmity or jealousy.[41] +Adams had no little to say about Franklin's love of ease and tranquillity, +the social and academic distractions, to which he was subject, and the +extent to which his time was consumed by curious visitors. It is a +sufficient answer to all such disparagement to declare that he successfully +dispatched an enormous amount of public business with but very little aid, +and unflinchingly bore a load of responsibility only less weighty than that +of Washington; that no spy, such as obtained secret access to the papers of +Silas Deane and Arthur Lee for the purposes of the British Government, ever +abstracted any valuable information from his papers; and that his position +in the polite and learned world, and the popular curiosity, excited by his +fame, were among the things which tended most effectually to recommend him +to the favor of the French People and Ministry. The effort was also made by +John Adams to create the impression that Franklin was unduly subservient to +the influence of France, and that, but for the superior firmness of John +Jay and himself, the United States would not have concluded a peace with +England on terms anything like so favorable as those actually obtained from +her. + +In what respects Franklin can be truly said to have been servile to French +influence, it is impossible to see. If by this is meant that he did not +share the prejudices of Adams and Jay against the French people, did not +harbor their keen distrust of the motives of the French ministry and did +not feel as free as they to ignore the proprieties, arising out of the +profound obligations of America to France, the reflection is just enough. +Neither Adams nor Jay ever succeeded in making himself sufficiently +acceptable to the French people or ministry, or obtained sufficient +benefits from them for his countrymen, to feel any sense of personal +indebtedness to them, or to be inclined to show any unusual degree of +consideration to them. This was true of Jay, if for no other reason, +because his intercourse with them was but limited in point of time. +Franklin, on the other hand, was the idol of the French people, and +received from Vergennes as decisive proofs of confidence as one individual +can confer upon another. No one could have been in a better position than +he was to know that the French alliance was hardly more the fruit of +selfish policy upon the part of the French ministry, or of a desire upon +its part to avenge historic injuries, than of the generous sensibility of +the French people to the liberal and democratic impulses, which were +hurrying them on to the fiercest outbreak of uncalculating enthusiasm that +the world has ever seen. He had never entered the cabinet of the French +Minister to sue for pecuniary aid without coming away with a fresh cordial +for the drooping energies of his people. That upright and able minister, he +wrote to Samuel Huntington, on one occasion, had never promised him +anything which he did not punctually perform.[42] No matter how dark were +the thick clouds that enveloped the fate of his country, no matter how +acute was the pecuniary distress of France herself, there was always +another million at the bottom of the stocking of the French tax-payer for +the land of freedom and opportunity. Franklin had even known what it was to +beg for a loan from the French King and to receive it as a gracious gift. +He would have been fashioned of ignoble materials, indeed, if he had been +too quick, in seeking the selfish advantage of his country, to forget the +extraordinary magnanimity of her ally, and to suspect a disposition upon +her part to deprive the United States of the just rewards of the triumph, +which they might never have achieved but for her. And he, at any rate, with +his strong sense of justice, was not likely to commit himself with +unhesitating alacrity to a coldblooded scramble for concessions from +England to America which took no account of the fact that France not only +had the interests of America, but also her own necessities to consult, and +that it was as essential to her interests that America should not make +peace with England before she did, as it was to the interests of America +that France should not make peace with England before America did. In the +Treaty of Alliance, France had assumed no obligation to the United States +except that of continuing to wage war against England until their +independence was acknowledged, and of not concluding any peace with England +that did not include them. She had never bound herself to secure to America +the right of fishery on the Newfoundland Banks, or to oppose every +restriction upon the extension of her western boundaries. In the course of +the war, there was a time when the situation of America was so desperate +that Vergennes was, with perfect fidelity to the American cause, brought to +the conclusion that the Thirteen States might well afford to surrender a +part of their territory to England as the price of independence; and this +was a conclusion to which any honest American mind might have been brought +under the circumstances. And, even after this crisis had passed, and +negotiations for peace were pending between Great Britain and the Allies, +it is not surprising that he should not have foreseen that he would ever +have occasion to say, as he did after England and America came to terms, +that England had bought rather than made a peace, but should have thought +that England might still hold out stubbornly enough to cause even America +to feel that she could be reasonably expected by France to forego more than +one minor expectation to make certain of her independence. There was also +the fact, which could hardly escape the attention of a man so deferential +to the authority of his principals as Franklin always was, that Congress +had positively instructed its Commissioners to make the most candid and +confidential communications upon all subjects to the minister of its +generous ally, the King of France, to undertake nothing in the negotiations +for peace or a truce without the knowledge and concurrence of the Minister +and King, and ultimately to govern themselves by their advice and opinion. + +And there was also the fact that Franklin had always had such marked +success in influencing the conclusions of Vergennes, that he might well +have confided in his ability to bring the French minister over to any +reasonable views that he might form about the results that America had the +right to expect from the Peace; particularly as Vergennes had long been +possessed with a haunting fear that America might be detached from her +alliance with France. + +In the light of all these circumstances, it is not strange that Franklin +should have been reluctant, in the first instance, to unite with Adams and +Jay in signing the preliminary treaty of peace with England without +previously consulting with Vergennes; for that is the only tangible +foundation for the claim that he was too submissive to the selfish designs +of France; and there is no substantial evidence that any real point was +gained by America by the act, or that it awakened any feeling in Vergennes +profounder than the passing disappointment, born of realized distrust and +affronted pride, which led him to write to M. de la Luzerne, the French +Minister to the United States, immediately after it as follows: + + I think it proper that the most influential members of + Congress should be informed of the very irregular + conduct of their Commissioners in regard to us. You may + speak of it not in the tone of complaint. I accuse no + person; I blame no one, not even Dr. Franklin. He has + yielded too easily to the bias of his colleagues, who + do not pretend to recognize the rules of courtesy in + regard to us. All their attentions have been taken up + by the English whom they have met in Paris. If we may + judge of the future from what has passed here under our + eyes, we shall be but poorly paid for all that we have + done for the United States, and for securing to them a + national existence. + +When we recollect how faithfully France had rejected every effort upon the +part of England to treat for peace with her separately, and insisted that +the treaty of peace between England and France, on the one hand, and the +treaty of peace between England and the United States, on the other, should +go hand in hand, how entirely Vergennes had refrained from inquiring into +the course of the pending negotiations between England and our +commissioners, which resulted in the signing of the preliminary treaty of +peace between England and the United States; and how singularly limited was +the measure of concession that France asked for herself from England, these +words cannot be read by any true American without a highly painful +impression. + +When Franklin appealed, after the peace, to both Adams and Jay to deny the +statement, current in America, that he had not stood up stoutly for +American rights, when the peace was being concluded, Jay complied with +unreserved emphasis, and Adams with a reluctant note which rendered his +testimony but the stronger. The truth is that, if Franklin's conduct during +the peace negotiations was not admirable in every respect, it was only +because he found that he could not decline to unite with his colleagues in +violating the instruction of Congress without breaking with them and +hazarding discord that might be fatal to the interests of his country. He +did not, of course, believe that France, after the enormous sacrifices that +she had made for American independence, was engaged in a treacherous effort +to shackle the growth of the United States. He could not readily have +entertained such a totally ungrounded suspicion as that which led Jay, when +he learnt that De Rayneval was going over to London to have an interview +with Shelburne, to leap to the conclusion that it was for the purpose of +confounding American aspirations, and to inform Shelburne that now was the +time for England to outbid France for the favor of America by executing at +once preliminary articles of peace, conceding to America the points about +which she was most concerned. The overture was a bold one, but if it had +not been accepted in the manner that it was, and had been communicated by +Shelburne to Vergennes, it might have been attended by consequences +inimical to the Alliance which even the personal influence of Franklin +might not have been able to prevent. Franklin was too prudent to risk +rashly the support of an ally, from which the United States still found it +necessary to borrow money, even after their independence was acknowledged, +and too grateful to risk lightly the friendship of an ally which had not +only aided the United States with soldiers, ships and money to secure their +independence, but had repeatedly declined to treat with England except on +the basis of American independence. His inclination naturally and properly +enough was to maintain with Vergennes until the last the frank and intimate +relations that he had always maintained with him; to avoid everything that +might have the least savor of faithlessness or sharp practice in the +opinion of our ally, and to rely upon our growing importance and the +ordinary appeals of argument and persuasion for a peace at once fair and +just to both the United States and France. But never once from the time +that he wrote to Lord Shelburne the brief letter, that initiated the +negotiations for peace between England and the United States, until the day +that he threw himself, after the consummation of peace, into the arms of +the Duc de la Rochefoucauld, saying, "My friend! Could I have hoped at my +age to enjoy such a happiness," was he animated by any purpose except that +of securing for his countrymen the most generous terms that he could. It is +by no means improbable that, if he had been our sole negotiator, he would +not only have obtained for us all that was secured by his +Fellow-Commissioners and himself but Canada besides, and would, moreover, +have saved the United States the reproach that justly attached to them +because of the precipitate signature of the preliminary articles of peace. +As we have already seen, the acquisition of Canada by the United States +was something that he had definitely in mind even before the negotiations +for peace began, and, when they did begin, this was one of the things that +he specified in a memorandum that he gave to Oswald, the British envoy, as +concessions that it was advisable for England to make, and we also know +from the correspondence of Oswald that it was a topic to which his +conversation frequently turned. With such address did he ply Oswald upon +this point that the latter went so far as to say that it might be conceded. +To compass it, he was even willing to agree that the Loyalists should be +compensated by the United States for their losses; which was the point upon +which the English Ministry was most earnestly bent, and the one which +aroused in him feelings of the deepest antagonism. What a trifling +recompense the compensation of the Loyalists would have been for such an +addition to our national domain as Canada we hardly need say; nor need we +dilate upon the far-sighted statesmanship which so surely foresaw what +futurity held in store for a country which, as late as 1760, had been +gravely proposed to be exchanged with France for the Island of Guadeloupe. +It is to be regretted by the United States, if the present happy lot of +Canada is to be the subject of regret at all, that the desire of Franklin +to secure Canada for them was not more urgently seconded by Adams and Jay. +The former was enthusiastically resolved, as was but proper, to secure for +New England the right to fish on the Newfoundland Banks, and the latter was +especially eager, as any statesman with the slightest glow of imagination +might well have been, to remove every obstacle in our pathway westward. +Neither appears to have been zealously alive to the considerations, which +led Franklin to cast a covetous eye upon Canada, and to make it one of the +primary objects of his efforts to promote the interests of America during +the peace negotiations. On the other hand, Franklin was not less impressed +than they were with the importance of our North Eastern Fisheries and our +Western Destiny; and was quite as stiff as they in maintaining our rights +with respect to them. Moreover, when the insistence of the English Ministry +upon compensation for the Loyalists threatened to be the only rock, upon +which the negotiations were likely to split, it was his suggestiveness +which relieved the situation by proposing, as an offset to the losses of +the Loyalists, the payment by England of the pecuniary losses wantonly +inflicted by her upon the inhabitants of such towns as Fairfield and +Norfolk on our Atlantic seaboard. After this timely counter-claim, a +compromise was soon reached, under which it was agreed that the Loyalists +should be referred to the justice of the individual States with a favorable +recommendation from the Commissioners. This was but a diplomatic way of +disposing of the proposition adversely without seeming to do so, for +Shelburne as well as the American Commissioners must have realized that the +recommendation was the only form of indemnity that the Loyalists were +likely to obtain. + +Friendly as Franklin was to the French Court, it was only where some treaty +stipulation was involved, or some definite rule of courtesy was to be +observed, that he recognized the right of France to influence the course of +the negotiations between England and the American Commissioners. He knew as +well as Adams and Jay that French policy, partly because of considerations, +peculiar to France herself, and partly because of obligations, that France +owed to Spain, differed in some very material respects from American +policy. But he entertained the belief, and justly entertained the belief, +that this was no reason why Vergennes should necessarily be moved by the +settled, perfidious purpose of arresting an agreement between England and +America until the negotiations between England and France and Spain had +gone too far for the United States to be any longer in the position to +insist effectively upon their fishery and boundary claims. The disposition +of the French Minister to contemplate contingencies, in which concessions +would have to be made by America, was in Franklin's judgment "due to the +moderation of the minister and to his desire of removing every obstacle to +speedy negotiations for peace"; and there is no real reason to believe that +he was not right. It is quite true that Marbois, when he was the French +Secretary of Legation in the United States, in his famous letter to +Vergennes, which the English were at pains to bring to the notice of John +Jay, suggested to Vergennes that he should let the Americans know that +their pretensions to the Newfoundland fisheries were not well founded, and +that the French King did not mean to support them; but, as Vergennes wrote +to M. de la Luzerne, the successor of Gérard, the opinion of Marbois was +not necessarily that of the King, and, moreover the views of his letter had +not been followed. When Franklin made his suggestion to Oswald in respect +to Canada, he did not bring it to the knowledge of Vergennes. In the very +commencement of the negotiations between England and the United States, he +let it be known to Grenville, the envoy of Charles James Fox, that, when +Great Britain acknowledged the independence of America, the treaty, that +America had made with France for gaining it, ended, and no conventional tie +remained between America and France but that of the treaty of commerce +which England, too, might establish between America and herself, if she +pleased. Indeed, Vergennes himself clearly recognized the right of the +American Commissioners to make the best terms that they could for +themselves in the matter of the fisheries, the western boundaries or any +other object of American policy. + + We are [he wrote Luzerne on April 9, 1782], and shall + always be, disposed to consent that the American + plenipotentiaries in Europe should treat according to + their instructions directly and without our + intervention with those of the Court of London, while + we on our side shall treat in the same way, provided + that the two negotiations continue at the same rate, + and that the two treaties shall be signed the same day, + and shall not be good the one without the other. + +The hesitation of Franklin about executing the preliminary articles of +peace between England and the United States was not due to any doubt as to +the technical right of the American Commissioners to sign it, aside from +the instruction of Congress that they were not to take any important step +without the advice of the French Ministry. He hesitated to sign it because +he was subject to this instruction, and also because he felt that for the +Commissioners to sign such a treaty, without taking Vergennes into their +confidence, was hardly compatible with the scrupulous deference due to such +a timely, generous and powerful ally as France had proved herself to be and +might be again. His reason for disregarding the instruction of Congress, +and uniting with his colleagues in signing the articles doubtless was that +he deemed it unwise, in any view of the case, not to subordinate his own +judgment, after full discussion, to that of the majority of the Commission +in a case where, if the French Minister were acting in bad faith, it was +but proper that his bad faith should be anticipated, and where, if he were +acting in good faith, his resentment was not likely to be more serious than +that which is usually visited upon a mere breach of diplomatic decorum. The +execution of the articles was expressly made subject to the proviso that +they were to have no force, if England did not reach an understanding with +France also. Without such a proviso, the action of our Commissioners, of +course, would have merited the contempt of the world. With it, Franklin was +left free to say, disingenuously it must be confessed, to Vergennes that, +in signing the articles, the Commissioners had at the most been guilty of +neglecting a point of _bienséance_. No one knew better than he that no such +soothing pretence could be set up by Adams and Jay, and that, even as +respected himself, though the extent of his offence consisted, as Vergennes +truly divined, in yielding to the bias of his colleagues, he had been drawn +into a position in which it was impossible for him to separate himself +wholly from either the motives or the moral responsibilities of his +colleagues. In transmitting with them to Congress a copy of the articles, +he united with them in this statement: + + As we had reason to imagine that the Articles + respecting the boundaries, the refugees and fisheries, + did not correspond with the policy of this court, we + did not communicate the preliminaries to the Minister + until after they were signed, and not even then the + separate Article. We hope that these considerations + will excuse our having so far deviated from the spirit + of our instructions. The Count de Vergennes, on + perusing the Articles, appeared surprised, but not + displeased, at their being so favorable to us. + +The separate article was one fixing the northern boundary of West Florida, +in case Great Britain, at the conclusion of the war, should recover, or be +put in possession of, that Province. In reply to a letter from Robert R. +Livingston, disapproving the manner, in which the articles had been signed, +Franklin said that they had done what appeared to all of them best at the +time, and, if they had done wrong, the Congress would do right, after +hearing them, to censure them. The nomination by Congress of five persons +to the service, he further said, seemed to mark that they had some +dependence on their joint judgment, since one alone could have made a +treaty by direction of the French Ministry, as well as twenty. But there +can be no doubt that the individual views of Franklin about the aims of the +French Court, in relation to the United States, are to be found not in the +letter of the Commissioners to Congress, but in his own words in this same +reply to Livingston: + + I will only add [he said] that, with respect to myself, + neither the Letter from M. de Marbois, handed us thro' + the British Negociators (a suspicious Channel) nor the + Conversations respecting the Fishery, the Boundaries, + the Royalists, &c., recommending Moderation in our + Demands, are of Weight sufficient in my Mind to fix an + Opinion, that this Court wish'd to restrain us in + obtaining any Degree of Advantage we could prevail on + our Enemies to accord; since those Discourses are + fairly resolvable, by supposing a very natural + Apprehension, that we, relying too much on the Ability + of France to continue the War in our favour, and supply + us constantly with Money, might insist on more + Advantages than the English would be willing to grant, + and thereby lose the Opportunity of making Peace, so + necessary to all our friends. + +It is impossible, however, to believe that Franklin could have taken such a +step except with grave misgivings as to its effect on the mind of +Vergennes. This is shown by the reserve which he, as well as his +fellow-commissioners, maintained towards Vergennes, while the preliminary +articles were being matured. + + According to the injunctions of Congress [Vergennes + wrote to Luzerne], they should have done nothing + without our participation. I have pointed out to you, + Sir, that the King would not have sought to interest + himself in the negotiations, save in so far as his + offices might be necessary to his friends. The American + Commissioners will not say that I have sought to + intervene in their business, still less that I have + wearied them by my curiosity. They have kept themselves + carefully out of my way. + +It must have taxed even the nice judgment of Franklin to calculate +precisely the degree of resentment that the act of the Commissioners would +excite. He took the precaution of sending a copy of the articles to +Vergennes the day after they were signed. His receipt of them was followed +by an ominous silence. Some days later, Franklin called upon Vergennes, and +the latter took pains to let him perceive that the signing of the articles +had little in it which could be agreeable to the King, and Franklin +advanced such excuses for his colleagues and himself as the case permitted. +According to Vergennes, the conversation was amicable, but for a time it +did not efface the impression that his mind had received. A week or so +later, when Franklin proposed to send the preliminary articles to America +by a ship, for which an English passport had been provided, and was +soliciting a loan of twenty millions of francs from France, Vergennes gave +him a bad quarter of an hour. + + I am at a loss sir [he said] to explain your conduct, + and that of your colleagues on this occasion. You have + concluded your preliminary articles without any + communication between us, although the instructions + from Congress prescribe that nothing shall be done + without the participation of the King. You are about to + hold out a certain hope of peace to America, without + even informing yourself on the state of the negotiation + on our part. You are wise and discreet, sir; you + perfectly understand what is due to propriety; you have + all your life performed your duties. I pray you to + consider how you propose to fulfill those, which are + due to the King! I am not desirous of enlarging these + reflections; I commit them to your own integrity. When + you shall be pleased to relieve my uncertainty, I will + entreat the King to enable me to answer your demands. + +The reply of Franklin was almost abject. + + Nothing [he said] has been agreed in the preliminaries + contrary to the interests of France; and no peace is to + take place between us and England, till you have + concluded yours. Your observation is, however, + apparently just, that, in not consulting you before + they were signed, we have been guilty of neglecting a + point of _bienséance_. But, as this was not from want + of respect for the King, whom we all love and honour, + we hope it will be excused, and that the great work, + which has hitherto been so happily conducted, is so + nearly brought to perfection, and is so glorious to his + reign, will not be ruined by a single indiscretion of + ours. And certainly the whole edifice sinks to the + ground immediately, if you refuse on that account to + give us any further assistance. + +Again, unpromising as the conditions were, there was no resisting the voice +of the seductive mendicant. France did not lend the twenty millions of +francs to the United States because she did not have that much to lend; but +she did lend six. If any loss of dignity or self-respect was suffered on +this occasion it was not by her. + +The definitive treaty of peace between Great Britain and the United States +was signed at Paris on September 3, 1783, and was ratified a few months +later by both the contracting powers. Several weeks after it was signed, +Franklin again tendered his resignation to Congress, but it was not +accepted until March 7, 1785. Three days later, Jefferson, who had been in +France ever since August, 1784, for the purpose of co-operating with +Franklin and Adams in the negotiation of commercial treaties with England +and other European countries, was appointed the American plenipotentiary at +the Court of Versailles in the place of Franklin. + +Shortly after the return of Franklin to Philadelphia, he was elected +President of the Executive Council of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, +and, in 1787, he was elected a member of the convention which adopted the +Federal Constitution. There was only one man in the United States whose +claims to the Presidency of the Convention could possibly be deemed +paramount to his; and that was Washington. The nomination of Washington to +the position was to have been made by him, but the weather on the day, +fixed for it, was too bad to permit him at his advanced age, and in his +infirm condition, to venture abroad. The honor of making the nomination, +therefore, fell to Robert Morris, another member of the Pennsylvania +delegation. It was thought becoming and graceful in Pennsylvania, Madison +tells us, to pass by her own distinguished citizen as President, and to +take the lead in giving that pre-eminence to the late Commander-in-Chief of +the American Army, which the country felt to be his due.[43] At the next +session of the Convention, Franklin was present, and thereafter he attended +its sessions regularly for five hours each day for more than four months. +His stone made it impossible for him to stand long upon his feet, and, when +he participated on any important occasion in the discussions of the body, +it was his habit to reduce his thoughts to writing, and to have them read +to the body by one of his colleagues, usually James Wilson. Copies of these +speeches were made by Madison from the original manuscripts for his reports +of the debates of the Convention, and, unlike the speeches of the other +leading members of the Assembly, the speeches of Franklin have consequently +come down to us in their entirety. Of his general course in the Convention, +it is enough to say that it was strongly marked by liberalism, faith in the +popular intelligence and virtue, and the aversion to arbitrary power which +was always such a prominent feature of his conduct in every relation. He +had a quick eye to the abuses of authority, and it is probable that, if he +had been a younger man, when the Convention met, and had lived until the +clash between the Federalists and the Republicans arose, he would have been +a Republican. Inane idealism, lack of energy and resolution did not belong +to his character, but, to say nothing more, what he had seen of the +workings of monarchical and aristocratic institutions, during the long +dispute between England and her colonies, was not calculated to prejudice +him in their favor.[44] + +The compensation that should be paid to the Chief Magistrate of the Union +was the first topic to which he formally addressed himself as a member of +the Convention. In his opinion, no pecuniary compensation should be paid to +him. The argument that he pursued in support of his proposition was one +that he had often made with respect to the Government of Great Britain. + + Sir [he said] there are two Passions which have a + powerful Influence in the Affairs of Men. These are + _Ambition and Avarice_; the Love of Power and the Love + of Money. Separately, each of these has great Force in + prompting Men to Action; but when united in View of the + same Object, they have in many Minds the most violent + Effects. Place before the Eyes of such Men a Post of + _Honour_, that shall at the same time be a Place of + _Profit_, and they will move Heaven and Earth to obtain + it. The vast Number of such Places it is that renders + the British Government so tempestuous. The Struggles + for them are the true source of all those Factions + which are perpetually dividing the Nation, distracting + its Councils, hurrying it sometimes into fruitless and + mischievous Wars, and often compelling a Submission to + dishonorable Terms of Peace. + +The argument, of course, fell upon deaf ears. It really presupposes a +numerous class, at once sufficiently free from pecuniary anxieties to give +its exclusive attention to public duties, and sufficiently qualified to +discharge them with the requisite degree of success. Such a class was not +to be found in America, at any rate, and, even if it was, it would have +been invidious in the eyes of a democratic community to limit the enjoyment +of public office to it. The subsequent history of the Republic showed that, +in the beginning of our national existence, even moderate salaries did not +suffice to keep some of the ablest men in the United States from declining +or resigning federal office. The long journeys and the bad roads and +taverns of that day were probably responsible for this state of things. In +the first thirty years after the adoption of the Federal Constitution, no +less than one hundred and ten seats in the United States Senate were +resigned, and Washington experienced great difficulty in inducing lawyers +to accept positions even on the Supreme Bench of the United States. It is a +remarkable fact that, during the first thirty years after the adoption of +the Federal Constitution, ten persons either declined to serve as associate +justices of the Supreme Court, or resigned the office. It is a still more +remarkable fact that both Jay and Ellsworth resigned as Chief Justice after +brief terms of office. There was, however, undoubtedly an element of +expediency in the views of Franklin, for it is no uncommon thing in the +United States to see the supervisory functions of certain offices, +connected with the educational or eleemosynary systems of the country, more +efficiently and faithfully exercised, when exercised without pay by men, in +whom public spirit or philanthropic zeal is highly developed, than they +would be, if exercised by the very different kind of men who would be +attracted to them, if salaried. + +In connection with another question, the extent to which the superior +wealth and population of the larger states were to be represented in +Congress, it was the fortune of Franklin to exert a powerful and decisive +influence. The debate over this question was so protracted and heated, the +smaller States demanding equal representation with the larger in both +Houses of Congress, and the larger repelling the claim as utterly +unreasonable and unjust, that it looked, at one time, as if the Convention +would break up like a ship lodged on a fatal rock. Then it was that +Franklin found out to his surprise that his colleagues did not set the same +value as himself upon the harmonizing influence of prayer. Not only was his +suggestion that the proceedings of the Convention be opened each day with +it rejected, but the controversy became more acrimonious than ever; John +Dickinson, one of the members from Delaware, who always had a way of +chafing in harness, even declaring that rather than be deprived of an +equality of representation in the Legislature he would prefer to be a +foreign subject. At this point, Franklin came forward with a proposition of +compromise, accompanied by one of his happy illustrations. + + The diversity of opinion [he said] turns on two points. + If a proportional representation take place, the small + States contend that their liberties will be in danger. + If an equality of votes is to be put into its place, + the larger States say their money will be in danger. + When a broad table is to be made, and the edges of the + planks do not fit, the artist takes a little from both, + and makes a good joint. + +He then proposed that all the States should have an equal number of +delegates in Congress, and that on all questions affecting the authority or +sovereignty of a State, or, when appointments and confirmations were under +consideration, every State should have an equal vote, but that on bills to +raise or expend money every State should have a vote proportioned to its +population. This compromise did not meet with the favor of the smaller +States. Under the lead of Dickinson, they still contended for unvarying +equality between them and the larger States. At length, a committee was +appointed to consider the matter, and to report a compromise, and Franklin +was one of its members. It came back with a plan, proposed by his +constructive intellect, namely, that, in the Senate, every State should +have equal representation, but that, in the other House, every State should +have a representation proportioned to its population; and that bills to +raise or expend money should originate in the other House. The report of +the committee was adopted, and no device of the Constitution has, in +practice, more strikingly vindicated the wisdom of the brain by which it +was conceived than that hit upon by Franklin for disarming the jealousy and +fears of the smaller States represented in the Convention. + +He approved the proposed article making the presidential term of office +seven years, and declaring its incumbent ineligible for a second term. The +sagacity of this conclusion has been confirmed by experience. There was +nothing degrading, Franklin thought, in the idea of the magistrate +returning to the mass of the people; for in free governments rulers are the +servants, and the people are their superiors and sovereigns. The same +popular bias manifested itself when the proposition was made to limit the +suffrage to freeholders. "It is of great consequence," he said, "that we +should not depress the virtue and public spirit of our common people, of +which they displayed a great deal during the war, and which contributed +principally to the favorable issue of it." The British statute, setting +forth the danger of tumultuous meetings, and, under that pretext, narrowing +the right of suffrage to persons having freeholds of a certain value, was +soon followed, he added, by another, subjecting the people, who had no +votes, to peculiar labors and hardships. Some days later, Madison informs +us, he expressed his dislike to everything that tended to debase the spirit +of the common people. If honesty was often the companion of wealth, and, if +poverty was exposed to peculiar temptations, it was not less true, he +declared, that the possession of property increased the desire for more +property. Some of the greatest rogues he was ever acquainted with were the +richest rogues. They should remember the character which the Scriptures +require in rulers, that they should be men hating covetousness. The +Constitution would be much read and attended in Europe, and, if it should +betray a great partiality to the rich, would not only cost them the esteem +of the most liberal and enlightened men there, but discourage the common +people from removing to America. + +He strongly favored the clause giving Congress the power to impeach the +President. When the head of the government cannot be lawfully called to +account, the people have no recourse, he said, against oppression but +revolution and assassination. These, it should be recollected, were the +utterances of a man who was from age too near the end of political ambition +to be possibly influenced by demagogic designs of any sort. Franklin also +opposed the idea of conferring an absolute veto upon the President, and the +requirement of fourteen years' residence as a condition of citizenship. +Four years he believed to be enough. He approved the article making an +overt act essential to the crime of treason, and exacting the evidence of +two witnesses to establish the overt act. + +He also forcibly expressed his views with regard to the respective powers +with which the two Houses of Congress should be invested. When the +Convention was drawing to a close, he urged its members in a tactful and +persuasive speech to lay aside their individual disappointments, and to +give their work to the world with the stamp of unanimity. As is well known, +when the last members were signing, he looked towards the President's +chair, at the back of which there was a representation of a rising sun, +and, after observing to some of his associates near him that painters had +found it difficult in their art to distinguish a rising from a setting sun, +he concluded with this exultant peroration: "I have often and often, in the +course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its +issue, looked at that behind the President, without being able to tell +whether it was rising or setting: but now, at length, I have the happiness +to know, that it is a rising and not a setting sun." And a rising sun, +indeed, it was, starting out upon its splendid circuit like the sun in the +lines of Charles Lamb, "with all his fires and travelling glories round +him." + +The opinions of Franklin with regard to general political topics are always +acute and interesting, and, unlike the opinions of most great men, even the +greatest, are rarely, if ever, flecked by the errors of his time. In some +quarters, there has been a disposition to reproach him with being an +advocate of what since his day has come to be known in the United States as +rag or fiat money. The reproach loses sight of the fact that the currency +problems, with which he had to deal, did not turn upon the true respective +functions of paper and real money, under conditions that permit their +application to their several natural and proper uses. No such conditions +existed in America during the colonial period or the Revolutionary War. +There was no California, Alaska, Nevada, or Colorado then. "Gold and +Silver," Franklin said in 1767, in his _Remarks and Facts Concerning +American Paper Money_, "are not the Produce of _North-America_, which has +no Mines." + +Every civilized community, unless it is to be remanded to mere barter, must +have some kind of convenient medium for the exchange of commodities and +the payment of debts, even though it be no better than wampum or tobacco. +Paper money, whether it bore interest or not, and whether it was a legal +tender or not, was, unsupported by any real provision for its redemption, a +dangerous currency for America, in her early history, as it is for any +country, whatever its state of maturity; but she had no choice. It was +either that or something not even as good on the whole for monetary +purposes. Not only were there no gold or silver mines in North America, but +the balance of trade between the Colonies and Great Britain was so greatly +in favor of the latter country that even such gold and silver coin, as +found its way to them, was at once drawn off to her. + + However fit [bitterly declared Franklin in the + pamphlet, to which we have just referred], a particular + Thing may be for a particular Purpose, wherever that + Thing is not to be had, or not to be had in sufficient + Plenty, it becomes necessary to use something else, the + fittest that can be got, in lieu of it. + +In America, this undoubtedly was a paper currency, even though issued as +real, and not representative, money. At times, in the history of the +Colonies, it worked much pecuniary loss and debasement of morals, but, +makeshift as it was, it was the best makeshift that the situation of the +Colonies allowed; and, when New England petitioned for the Act of +Parliament, depriving it of the legal-tender quality within her limits, it +was only, Franklin contended, because the close intercourse between the +four provinces, of which she was constituted, and the large supply of hard +money, derived by her from her whale and cod fisheries, took the sting out +of the act. But, when the act was afterwards extended to the other +colonies, it became a real grievance, and, as such, was stated by Franklin, +in his examination before the House of Commons, to be one of the causes, +which had lessened the respect of the Colonies for Parliament. "It seems +hard therefore," he said in the paper just mentioned, "to draw all their +real Money from them, and then refuse them the poor Privilege of using +Paper instead of it." In the same essay, the circumstances, in which the +need for a paper currency in the Colonies originated, are stated in his +perspicuous manner: "The Truth is, that the Balance of their Trade with +Britain being generally against them, the Gold and Silver is drawn out to +pay that Balance; and then the Necessity of some Medium of Trade has +induced the making of Paper Money, which could not be carried away." + +In his capacity as colonial agent, Franklin earnestly strove to secure the +repeal of the British legislation, forbidding the use of paper money in the +Colonies as a legal tender, and he even enlisted for this purpose the aid +of a large body of London merchants, engaged in the American trade, but his +efforts met with slight success. Some of the members of the Board of Trade, +who had united in recommending the restraint upon colonial paper money, +were, it was said, at the time in the state of mind of Soame Jenyns, who +had laughingly declared, when he was asked as a member of the Board to +concur in some measure, "I have no kind of objection to it, provided we +have heretofore signed nothing to the contrary."[45] Worse still, Grenville +threw out the chilling suggestion in the House of Commons that Great +Britain should make the paper money for the Colonies, issue it upon loan +there, take the interest and apply it as Parliament might think +proper.[46] This suggestion, and the interest excited by it led to a letter +from Franklin to Galloway in which he said that he was not for applying +again very soon for a repeal of the restraining act. "I am afraid," he +remarked, "an ill use will be made of it. The plan of our adversaries is to +render Assemblies in America useless; and to have a revenue independent of +their grants, for all the purposes of their defence, and supporting +governments among them." + +These comments were followed by the suggestion that the Pennsylvania +Assembly might be petitioned by the more prominent citizens of Pennsylvania +to authorize a moderate emission of paper money, though without the +legal-tender feature; the petition to be accompanied by a mutual engagement +upon the part of the petitioners to take the money in all business +transactions at rates fixed by law. Or, perhaps, Franklin said, a bank +might be established that would meet the currency needs of the community. +In any event, should the scarcity of money continue, they would rely more +upon their own industrial resources, to the detriment of the British +merchant, and by keeping in Pennsylvania the real cash, that came into it, +would, in time, have a quantity sufficient for all their occasions. The +same thought, tinged with a trace of resentment, emerges in one of his +letters to Lord Kames: + + As I think a scarcity of money will work with our other + present motives for lessening our fond extravagance in + the use of the superfluous manufactures of this + country, which unkindly grudges us the enjoyment of + common rights, and will tend to lead us naturally into + industry and frugality, I am grown more indifferent + about the repeal of the act, and, if my countrymen will + be advised by me, we shall never ask it again.[47] + +The relations sustained by Franklin to the Continental paper currency we +have already seen. There was an apparent element of inconsistency in his +suggestion that it should bear interest; for interest-bearing bills, he had +contended in his _Remarks and Facts Concerning American Paper Money_, were +objectionable as currency, because it was tedious to calculate interest on +one of them, as often as it changed hands, and also because a distinct +advantage was to be gained by hoarding them. + +The Continental bills depreciated so rapidly that in 1777 the price of a +bushel of salt at Baltimore was nine pounds. Three years later, the price +of a yard of cassimere in America was $300, and of a yard of jean and habit +cloth $60. Inflated as the bills were, Franklin with his cheerful habit of +mind was not at a loss to say a good word for them. There was some +advantage to the general public, at any rate, he wrote to Stephen Sayre, in +the facility with which taxes could be paid off with the depreciated +paper. Congress, he wrote to Dr. Cooper, had blundered in not earlier +adopting his suggestion that the interest on the bills should be paid in +real money. + + The _only Remedy_ now [he said] seems to be a + Diminution of the Quantity by a vigourous Taxation, of + great nominal Sums, which the People are more able to + pay, in proportion to the Quantity and diminished + Value; and the _only Consolation_ under the Evil is, + that the Publick Debt is proportionably diminish'd with + the Depreciation; and this by a kind of imperceptible + Tax, everyone having paid a Part of it in the Fall of + Value that took place between his receiving and Paying + such Sums as pass'd thro' his hands. + +In this same letter, Franklin declared that it was a mystery to foreign +politicians how America had been able to continue a war for four years +without money, and how it could pay with paper that had no previously fixed +fund appropriated specifically to redeem it. "This Currency, as we manage +it," he said, "is a wonderful Machine. It performs its Office when we issue +it; it pays and clothes Troops, and provides Victuals and Ammunition; and +when we are obliged to issue a Quantity excessive, it pays itself off by +Depreciation." The paper he subsequently wrote to Thomas Ruston had really +operated as a tax, and was perhaps the most equal of all taxes, since it +depreciated in the hands of holders of money, and thereby taxed them in +proportion to the sums they held and the time they held them, which +generally was in proportion to men's wealth. + +All this, of course, was but making the best of a _pis-aller_. Franklin in +a sense held a brief for paper money all his life, because, during almost +his whole life, his country had to put up with paper money, whether she +wanted to do so or not. When the Revolutionary War was over, he could be +less of an advocate, and more of a judge with respect to such money; and +the change is neatly illustrated in the words that he wrote from +Philadelphia to the Duc de la Rochefoucauld in 1787. "Paper money in +moderate quantities has been found beneficial; when more than the occasions +of commerce require, it depreciated and was mischievous; and the populace +are apt to demand more than is necessary." + +To see at once how quickly Franklin could evade the danger, lurking in the +proposition, urged by John Adams upon Vergennes, that the subjects of King +Louis were as fairly amenable to the will of Congress, in reducing the +value of paper money in their hands to one part in forty, as the Americans +themselves, and yet how perfectly Franklin understood the workings of a +depreciated paper currency, we need but turn to a letter from him to M. Le +Veillard dated Feb. 17, 1788. + + Where there is a free government [he said in this + letter] and the people make their own laws by their + representatives, I see no injustice in their obliging + one another to take their own paper money. It is no + more so than compelling a man by law to take his own + note. But it is unjust to pay strangers with such money + against their will. The making of paper money with such + a sanction is however a folly, since, although you may + by law oblige a citizen to take it for his goods, you + cannot fix his prices; and his liberty of rating them + as he pleases, which is the same thing as setting what + value he pleases on your money, defeats your sanction. + +Franklin was a free-trader, but his opinions with regard to import duties +are sometimes streaked with Protectionist reasoning. All the natural +leanings of such a broad-minded man were, it almost goes without saying, in +favor of unrestricted commerce. His general attitude towards commercial +restrictions was emphatically expressed in one of his letters to Peter +Collinson from which we have already quoted. + + In time perhaps [he said] Mankind may be wise enough to + let Trade take its own Course, find its own Channels, + and regulate its own Proportions, etc. At present, most + of the Edicts of Princes, Placaerts, Laws & Ordinances + of Kingdoms & States for that purpose, prove political + Blunders. The Advantages they produce not being + _general_ for the Commonwealth; but _particular_, to + private Persons or Bodies in the State who procur'd + them, and _at the Expence of the rest of the People_. + +Many years later, he wrote to Benjamin Vaughan, "The making England +entirely a free port would have been the wisest step ever taken for its +advantage." In recent years, his _Wail of a Protected Manufacturer_ has +been reprinted and widely circulated in England by the opponents of the +Fair Trade movement: + + Suppose a country, X, which has three + industries--cloth, silk, iron--and supplies three other + countries--A, B, and C--therewith, wishes to increase + the sale and raise the price of cloth in favour of its + cloth-makers. + + To that end X prohibits the importation of cloth from + A. + + In retaliation A prohibits silks coming from X. + + The workers in silk complain of the decline in their + trade. + + To satisfy them X excludes silk from B. + + B, to retaliate, shuts out iron and hardware against X. + + Then the makers of iron and hardware cry out that their + trades are being ruined. + + So X closes its doors against iron and hardware from C. + + In return C refuses to take cloth from X. + + Who is the gainer by all these prohibitions? + + Answer + + All the four countries have diminished their common + fund of the enjoyments and conveniences of life. + +The open ports of the United States, after the conclusion of the American +Revolution, were a source of keen gratification to Franklin. They had +brought in, he thought, a vast plenty of foreign goods, and occasioned a +demand for domestic produce; so that America enjoyed the double advantage +of buying what they consumed cheap, and of selling what they could spare +dear. + +The following views in a letter from him to Jared Eliot, as far back as the +year 1747, sound like a recent tariff reform speech in Congress: + + First, I imagine that the Five Per Cent Duty on Goods + imported from your Neighbouring Governments, tho' paid + at first Hand by the Importer, will not upon the whole + come out of his Pocket, but be paid in Fact by the + Consumer; for the Importer will be sure to sell his + Goods as much dearer as to reimburse himself; so that + it is only another Mode of Taxing your own People tho' + perhaps meant to raise Money on your Neighbours. + +But then follows what a free trader, using Franklin's own coarse phrase, +might call "spitting in the soup." "Yet, if you can make some of the Goods, +heretofore imported, among yourselves, the advanc'd price of five per cent +may encourage your own Manufacture, and in time make the Importation of +such Articles unnecessary, which will be an Advantage." + +In another place, he employed language in harmony with the importance that +the Protectionist assigns to his favorite system as a means of building up +local markets for the produce of the farmer.[48] It may be truly said, +however, as has already been hinted, that Franklin was never more friendly +to the principle of international free trade than in the latter years of +his life. In his letter to Le Veillard of Feb. 17, 1788, he used language +which demonstrates that he was still convinced that import duties are paid +by the consumer, and in an earlier letter to Robert R. Livingston in 1783 +he said that he felt inclined to believe that a State, which left all her +ports open to all the world, upon equal terms, would, by that means, have +foreign commodities cheaper, sell its own productions dearer and be on the +whole the most prosperous. + +For export duties, he had a fierce contempt. "To lay duties on a commodity +exported, which our neighbours want," he wrote to James Lovell in 1778, "is +a knavish attempt to get something for nothing. The statesman who first +invented it had the genius of a pickpocket, and would have been a +pickpocket if fortune had suitably placed him." + +How thoroughly Franklin understood the principles, which regulate the ebb +and flow of population, we have had occasion to note. + +With equal intelligence, he laid bare the pauperizing effect of aid +injudiciously extended to the poor in too generous a measure. Commenting in +his essay on the Laboring Poor on the liberal provision, made for indigence +in England, he said: + + I fear the giving mankind a dependance on anything for + support, in age or sickness, besides industry and + frugality during youth and health, tends to flatter our + natural indolence, to encourage idleness and + prodigality, and thereby to promote and increase + poverty, the very evil it was intended to cure; thus + multiplying beggars instead of diminishing them. + +In his essay, Franklin makes the interesting statement that the condition +of the poor in England was by far the best in Europe; "for that," he adds, +"except in England and her American colonies, there is not in any country +of the known world, not even in Scotland or Ireland, a provision by law to +enforce a support of the poor. Everywhere else necessity reduces to +beggary." The whole essay is a highly ingenious argument to the effect that +it is a misconception to think of a rich man as the sole possessor of his +wealth, and that in one way or another the laboring poor have the usufruct +of the entire clear income of all the property owners in the community. +Nobody knew better than Poor Richard that no help is worth speaking of save +that which promotes self-help. + + The support of the poor [he wrote to Richard Jackson] + should not be by maintaining them in idleness, but by + employing them in some kind of labour suited to their + abilities of body, as I am informed begins to be of + late the practice in many parts of England, where + workhouses are erected for that purpose. If these were + general, I should think the poor would be more careful, + and work voluntarily to lay up something for themselves + against a rainy day, rather than run the risk of being + obliged to work at the pleasure of others for a bare + subsistence, and that too under confinement. + +For Agriculture, Franklin always had an appreciative word. "Agriculture," +he observed in a letter to Cadwallader Evans, "is truly _productive of new +wealth_; manufacturers only change forms, and, whatever value they give to +the materials they work upon, they in the meantime consume an equal value +in provisions, &c." + +His other observations on Agriculture are worthy of being read for the +light that they cast on his own character, if for no other reason. It is, +he declared, in a letter to Jonathan Shipley, "the most useful, the most +independent, and therefore the noblest of Employments." Another remark of +his in his _Positions to be Examined, Concerning National Wealth_ is that +there seemed to him but three ways for a nation to acquire wealth: + + The first is by _war_, as the Romans did, in plundering + their conquered neighbors. This is _robbery_. The + second by _commerce_, which is _generally_ cheating. + The third by _agriculture_, the only _honest way_, + wherein man receives a real increase of the seed + thrown into the ground, in a kind of continual miracle, + wrought by the hand of God in his favour, as a reward + for his innocent life and his virtuous industry. + +The same spirit gives life to the following observations too in his essay +on "The Internal State of America": "The Agriculture and Fisheries of the +United States are the great Sources of our Encreasing Wealth. He that puts +a Seed into the Earth is recompens'd, perhaps, by receiving twenty out of +it; and he who draws a Fish out of our Waters, draws up a Piece of Silver." + +In Franklin's time as now there was a feeling that the farmer did not +receive his full share of the blessings of organized society. In his _Price +of Corn, and Management of the Poor_, he makes a farmer say, "I am one of +that class of people, that feeds you all, and at present is abused by you +all. In short I am a _farmer_." + +Franklin's views about punishment were also conspicuously worthy of his +kind heart and sound sense. His letter to Benjamin Vaughan on the Criminal +Laws is one of his best essays, and merited the honor conferred on it by +Samuel Romilly, when he added it in the form of an appendix to his own +observations on _Dr. Madan's Thoughts on Executive Justice_. In the course +of his feeling exposures of existing fallacies with respect to the +philosophy of punishment, Franklin, who did not scruple to say that there +would be less crime, if there were no criminal laws, asked these searching +questions: + + I see, in the last Newspaper from London, that a Woman + is capitally convicted at the Old Bailey, for privately + stealing out of a Shop some Gauze, value 14 Shillings + and three pence; is there any Proportion between the + Injury done by a Theft, value 14/3, and the Punishment + of a human Creature, by Death, on a Gibbet? Might not + that Woman, by her Labour, have made the Reparation + ordain'd by God, in paying fourfold? Is not all + Punishment inflicted beyond the Merit of the Offence, + so much Punishment of Innocence? In this light, how + vast is the annual Quantity of not only _injured_, but + _suffering_ Innocence, in almost all the civilized + States of Europe! + +That Franklin was opposed to imprisonment for debt it is hardly necessary +to say. His sense of humor, if nothing else, was sufficient to point out to +him the absurdity of depriving a debtor of all means of earning money until +he earned enough to satisfy his creditors. John Baynes, in his Journal, +informs us that, in a conversation with him, Franklin expressed his +disapprobation of "this usage" in very strong terms. He said he could not +compare any sum of money with imprisonment--they were not commensurable +quantities. + +Both slavery and the slave trade were held by Franklin in just reprobation, +but his views on these subjects, it must be confessed, would be weightier, +if he had not trafficked at one time in slaves himself. As it is, he +occupies somewhat the same equivocal position as that which inspired Thomas +Moore to pen the blackguard lines in which he pictured the American +slaveholding patriot as dreaming of Freedom in his bondmaid's arms.[49] The +economic truth, however, of what he had to say about Slave Labor in his +essay on "The Increase of Mankind" is undeniable. + + Tis an ill-grounded Opinion [he declared] that by the + Labour of slaves, _America_ may possibly vie in + Cheapness of Manufactures with _Britain_. The Labour of + Slaves here can never be so cheap here as the Labour of + working Men is in _Britain_. Anyone may compute it. + Interest of Money is in the Colonies from 6 to 10 per + Cent. Slaves one with another cost 30£ Sterling per + Head. Reckon then the Interest of the first Purchase of + a Slave, the Insurance or Risque on his Life, his + Cloathing and Diet, Expences in his Sickness and Loss + of Time, Loss by his Neglect of Business (Neglect is + natural to the Man who is not to be benefited by his + own Care or Diligence), Expence of a Driver to keep him + at Work, and his Pilfering from Time to Time, almost + every Slave being _by Nature_ a Thief, and compare the + whole Amount with the Wages of a Manufacturer of Iron + or Wool in _England_, you will see that Labour is much + cheaper there than it ever can be by Negroes here. + +In this essay, the introduction of slaves is enumerated as one of the +causes that diminish the growth of white population. + + The Negroes brought into the _English_ Sugar _Islands_ + [he says] have greatly diminish'd the Whites there; the + Poor are by this Means deprived of Employment, while a + few Families acquire vast Estates; which they spend on + Foreign Luxuries, and educating their Children in the + Habit of those Luxuries; the same Income is needed for + the Support of one that might have maintain'd 100. The + Whites who have Slaves, not labouring, are enfeebled, + and therefore not so generally prolific; the Slaves + being work'd too hard, and ill fed, their Constitutions + are broken, and the Deaths among them are more than the + Births; so that a continual Supply is needed from + _Africa_. The Northern Colonies, having few Slaves, + increase in Whites. Slaves also pejorate the Families + that use them; the white Children become proud, + disgusted with Labour, and being educated in Idleness, + are rendered unfit to get a Living by Industry.[50] + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[10] There is no evidence that, while he was a member of the Pennsylvania +Assembly, Franklin ever had occasion, as every member of an American State +legislature is likely to have, to deal with a bill for the extermination of +hawks and owls; but a skeleton sketch by his hand of his services as an +assemblyman shows that he shared the fate of the ordinary member of an +American State legislature in having a bill relating to dogs referred to a +Committee of which he was a member. + +[11] Franklin, though in no sense a time server, rarely got out of touch +with the majority simply because he always saw things as the best +collective intelligence of the community is likely to see them--only a +little sooner and more clearly. "Friend Joseph," one Quaker is said to have +asked of an acquaintance, "didst thee ever know Dr. Franklin to be in a +minority?" + +[12] "I believe it will in time be clearly seen by all thinking People that +the Government and Property of a Province should not be in the same family. +Tis too much weight in one scale." Letter from Franklin to Israel +Pemberton, Mar. 19, 1759. + +[13] In 1768, the revenues of the Proprietaries from their Pennsylvania +estates were estimated by Joseph Galloway to be not much short of one +hundred thousand pounds. + +[14] "The shocking news of the strange, unprecedented and ignominious +defeat of General Braddock," William Franklin said, "had no more effect +upon Governor Morris than the miracles of Moses had on the heart of +Pharaoh." + +[15] Franklin's first impressions of Lord Loudon were very different from +his later ones. In a letter to Strahan from New York, dated July 27, 1756, +he said: "I have had the honour of several conferences with him on our +American affairs, and am extremely pleased with him. I think there can not +be a fitter person for the service he is engaged in." + +[16] In connection with this feature of the proposed Plan of Union, +Franklin gives us some interesting facts in regard to the distances that +could be made in a day's journey in America in 1754. Philadelphia, he said, +was named as the place for the first meeting of the Grand Council because +it was central, and accessible by high roads, which were for the most part +so good that forty or fifty miles a day might very well be, and frequently +were, travelled over them. It could also be reached under very favorable +conditions by water. In summer the passage from Charleston to Philadelphia +often did not consume more than a week. Two or three days were required for +the passage from Rhode Island to New York, through the Sound, and the +distance between New York and Philadelphia could be covered in two days by +stage-boats and wheel-carriages that set out every other day. The transit +from Charleston to Philadelphia could be facilitated by the use of the +Chesapeake Bay. But, if all the members of the Grand Council were to set +out for Philadelphia on horseback, the most distant ones, those from New +Hampshire and South Carolina, could probably arrive at their destination in +fifteen or twenty days. + +[17] Another good Indian story is told by Franklin in his _Remarks +Concerning the Savages of North America_: "A Swedish Minister, having +assembled the chiefs of the Susquehanah Indians, made a Sermon to them, +acquainting them with the principal historical Facts on which our Religion +is founded; such as the Fall of our First Parents by eating an Apple, the +coming of Christ to repair the Mischief, his Miracles and Suffering, &c. +When he had finished, an Indian Orator stood up to thank him. 'What you +have told us,' says he, 'is all very good. It is indeed bad to eat Apples. +It is better to make them all into Cyder. We are much oblig'd by your +kindness in coming so far, to tell us these Things which you have heard +from your Mothers. In return, I will tell you some of those we have heard +from ours. In the Beginning, our Fathers had only the Flesh of Animals, to +subsist on; and if their Hunting was unsuccessful, they were starving. Two +of our young Hunters, having kill'd a Deer, made a Fire in the Woods to +broil some Part of it. When they were about to satisfy their Hunger, they +beheld a beautiful young Woman descend from the Clouds, and seat herself on +that Hill, which you see yonder among the blue Mountains. They said to each +other, it is a Spirit that has smelt our broiling Venison, and wishes to +eat of it; let us offer some to her. They presented her with the Tongue; +she was pleas'd with the Taste of it, and said, "Your kindness shall be +rewarded; come to this Place after thirteen Moons, and you shall find +something that will be of great Benefit in nourishing you and your children +to the latest Generations." They did so, and, to their surprise, found +Plants they had never seen before; but which, from that ancient time, have +been constantly cultivated among us, to our great Advantage. Where her +right Hand had touched the Ground, they found Maize; where her left hand +had touch'd it, they found Kidney-Beans, and where her Back side had sat on +it they found Tobacco.' The good Missionary, disgusted with this idle Tale, +said: 'What I delivered to you were sacred Truths; but what you tell me is +mere Fable, Fiction, and Falsehood.' The Indian, offended, reply'd, 'My +brother, it seems your Friends have not done you Justice in your Education; +they have not well instructed you in the Rules of common Civility. You saw +that we, who understand and practise those Rules, believ'd all your +stories; why do you refuse to believe ours?'" + +[18] When asked in the course of his examination before the House of +Commons what the temper of America towards Great Britain was before the +year 1763, Franklin made this reply: "The best in the world. They submitted +willingly to the government of the Crown, and paid, in all their courts, +obedience to acts of parliament. Numerous as the people are in the several +provinces, they cost you nothing in forts, citadels, garrisons, or armies, +to keep them in subjection. They were governed by this country at the +expence only of a little pen, ink and paper. They were led by a thread. +They had not only a respect, but an affection for Great-Britain; for its +laws, its customs and manners, and even a fondness for its fashions, that +greatly increased the commerce. Natives of Britain were always treated with +particular regard; to be an Old England man was, of itself, a character of +some respect, and gave a kind of rank among us." + +How little colored by the exigencies of the moment these words were is made +apparent in a letter from Franklin to Francis Maseres after the +independence of the Colonies had been acknowledged by England. "The true +_loyalists_ were the people of America, against whom they (the Tories) +acted. No people were ever known more truly loyal, and universally so, to +their sovereigns. The Protestant succession in the House of Hanover was +their idol. Not a Jacobite was to be found from one end of the Colonies to +the other. They were affectionate to the people of England, zealous and +forward to assist in her wars, by voluntary contributions of men and money, +even beyond their proportion. The King and Parliament had frequently +acknowledged this by public messages, resolutions, and reimbursements. But +they were equally fond of what they esteemed their rights; and, if they +resisted when those were attacked, it was a resistance in favour of a +British constitution, which every Englishman might share in enjoying, who +should come to live among them; it was resisting arbitrary impositions, +that were contrary to common right and to their fundamental constitutions, +and to constant ancient usage. It was indeed a resistance in favour of the +liberties of England, which might have been endangered by success in the +attempt against ours; and therefore a great man in your Parliament did not +scruple to declare, he _rejoiced that America had resisted_. I, for the +same reason, may add this very resistance to the other instances of their +loyalty." + +[19] The view that Franklin took of the constitutional tie between Great +Britain and America was expressed in many different forms. One of the +concisest is to be found in a letter to his grandnephew Jonathan Williams, +dated Feb. 12, 1786, and, therefore, written after the tie, whatever its +exact nature was, had become a subject for the historian rather than the +politician. Speaking of a controversy in which Williams had been involved, +he says: "It seems to me that instead of discussing _When_ we ceas'd to be +British Subjects you should have deny'd our _ever having been such_. We +were Subjects to the King of G. Britain, as were also the Irish, the Jersey +and Guernsey People and the Hanoverians, but we were American Subjects as +they were Irish, Jersey and Hanoverian Subjects. None are British Subjects +but those under the Parliament of Britain." + +[20] "Your medallion is in good company; it is placed with those of Lord +Chatham, Lord Camden, Marquis of Rockingham, Sir George Saville, and some +others, who honoured me with a show of friendly regard, when in England." + +(Letter from Franklin to Geo. Whatley, May 18, 1787.) + +[21] This idea is advanced also in _The Mother Country_, _A Song_, which +Jared Sparks thought was probably written by Franklin about the time of the +Stamp Act or a little later: + + "We have an old mother that peevish is grown; + She snubs us like children that scarce walk alone; + She forgets we're grown up and have sense of our own; + Which nobody can deny, deny, + Which nobody can deny. + + If we don't obey orders, whatever the case, + She frowns, and she chides and she loses all pati- + Ence, and sometimes she hits us a slap in the face, + Which nobody can deny, etc. + + Her orders so odd are, we often suspect + That age has impaired her sound intellect. + But still an old mother should have due respect, + Which nobody can deny, etc. + + Let's bear with her humors as well as we can; + But why should we bear the abuse of her man? + When servants make mischief, they earn the rattan, + Which nobody should deny, etc. + + Know too, ye bad neighbours, who aim to divide + The sons from the mother, that still she's our pride; + And if ye attack her we're all of her side, + Which nobody can deny, etc. + + We'll join in her lawsuits, to baffle all those, + Who, to get what she has, will be often her foes; + For we know it must all be our own, when she goes, + Which nobody can deny, deny, + Which nobody can deny." + + +[22] "But there can hardly be a doubt, as between the America and the +England of the future, that the daughter, at some no very distant time, +will, whether fairer or less fair, be unquestionably yet stronger than the +mother. + + "'O matre forti filia fortior.'" + + _Kin Beyond Sea_, by William E. Gladstone. + +[23] Jared Sparks hardly overstates the case when he asserts that the +policy and acts of Lord Hillsborough contributed more, perhaps, than those +of any other man towards increasing the discontents which led to the +separation of the Colonies from Great Britain. + +[24] On Jan. 28, 1820, John Adams stated in a letter to Dr. Hosack, of New +York, that Temple had told him in Holland that he had communicated the +Hutchinson letters to Dr. Franklin, though "I swear to you," he said to +Adams, "that I did not procure them in the manner represented." + +[25] Worldly success has rarely been less effective in gilding an unworthy +character than it was in the case of Wedderburn. American indignation over +his tirade against Franklin, indecent as it was under the circumstances, +would seem to be somewhat overdone, when we remember the professional +license allowed from time immemorial to the pleas of lawyers. It is enough +to say that we can safely leave his English contemporaries to take care of +his forbidding reputation. The searing irons of two of the most ferocious +satirists of literary history have left ineffaceable scars upon his +forehead. In the _Rosciad_ Churchill lifted the veil from the future in +these terms: + + "To mischief train'd, e'en from his mother's womb, + Grown old in fraud, tho. yet in manhood's bloom, + Adopting arts, by which gay villains rise, + And reach the heights, which honest men despise." + +"In vain," Junius wrote to the Duke of Grafton, some ten years later, +"would our gracious sovereign have looked round him for another character +as consummate as yours. Lord Mansfield shrinks from his principles; Charles +Fox is yet in blossom; and as for Mr. Wedderburn, there is something about +him which even treachery can not trust." But the "gracious sovereign," to +whom Wedderburn, afterwards Lord Rosslyn, sold his Whig principles, when +they had reached just the right stage of merchantable maturity, was equally +hard upon him. "When he died," Lord Brougham tells us, "after a few hours' +illness, the intelligence was brought to the King, who, with a +circumspection abundantly characteristic, asked the bearer of it if he was +quite _sure_ of the fact, as Lord Rosslyn had not been ailing before; and, +upon being assured that a sudden attack of gout in the stomach had really +ended the days of his late servant and once assiduous courtier, his majesty +was graciously pleased to exclaim: 'Then he has not left a worse man behind +him.'" + +[26] It is hard to think of a man, whose life was so essentially urban as +that of Franklin, becoming a backwoodsman, but such he was ready to become, +if necessary. In his _Hints for a Reply to the Protests of Certain Members +of the House of Lords against the Repeal of the Stamp Act_, he uses this +resolute language: "I can only Judge of others by myself. I have some +little property in America. I will freely spend nineteen shillings in the +pound to defend my right of giving or refusing the other shilling, and, +after all, if I can not defend that right, I can retire cheerfully with my +little family into the boundless woods of America, which are sure to afford +freedom and subsistence to any man who can bait a hook or pull a trigger." + +[27] In 1780, Franklin wrote from Passy to Georgiana Shipley: "I am +unhappily an Enemy, yet I think there has been enough of Blood spilt, and I +wish what is left in the Veins of that once lov'd People, may be spared by +a Peace solid and everlasting." + +[28] Franklin's three political hobbies were gratuitous public service, a +plural executive and a single legislature. Through his influence, the +second and third of these two ideas were engrafted upon the Revolutionary +Constitution of the State of Pennsylvania, and were later ably defended by +him, when assailed. The manner in which he illustrated his opposition to a +bi-cameral legislature is well-known. "Has not," he said, "the famous +political Fable of the Snake, with two Heads and one Body, some useful +Instruction contained in it? She was going to a Brook to drink, and in her +Way was to pass thro' a Hedge, a Twig of which opposed her direct course; +one Head chose to go on the right side of the Twig, the other on the left; +so that time was spent in the Contest, and, before the Decision was +completed, the poor Snake died with thirst." As far as carrying the idea of +gratuitous public service into execution was concerned, Franklin, of +course, might as well have attempted to grow pineapples in the squares of +Philadelphia. + +[29] In his Diary John Adams states shortly after his arrival in France +that it was said among other things that Arthur Lee had given offence by an +unhappy disposition, and by indiscreet speeches before servants and others +concerning the French nation and government--despising and cursing them. + +[30] Deprived of its epigrammatic form, this estimate does not differ so +very greatly from that of Jefferson a few years later: "He is vain, +irritable and a bad calculator of the force and probable effects of the +motives which govern men. This is all the ill which can possibly be said of +him. He is as disinterested as the being who made him; he is profound in +his views and accurate in his judgment, except when a knowledge of the +world is necessary to form a judgment. He is so amiable, that I pronounce +you will love him if ever you become acquainted with him. He would be, as +he was, a great man in Congress." + +[31] On Oct. 29, 1778, Vergennes finally wrote to Gérard, the French +Minister at Philadelphia, that his fear of Lee and of _ses entours_ made +the communication of state secrets to him impossible, and he instructed +Gérard to inform Congress that Lee's conduct had "created the highest +disgust" in the courts of France and Spain. It is doubtful whether any man +of the same degree of parts, courage and patriotic constancy as Arthur Lee +was ever more irredeemably condemned by the general verdict of his +contemporaries or posterity. It would be a profitless task to bring +together the most notable of these judgments. Jefferson summed up most of +them in a few words: "Dr. Lee," he said, "was his (Franklin's) principal +calumniator, a man of much malignity, who, besides enlisting his whole +family in the same hostility, was enabled, as the agent of Massachusetts +with the British Government, to infuse it into that State with considerable +effect. Mr. Izard, the Doctor's enemy also, but from a pecuniary +transaction, never countenanced these charges against him. Mr. Jay, Silas +Deane, Mr. Laurens, his colleagues also, ever maintained towards him +unlimited confidence and respect." Silas Deane, the most efficient envoy +except Franklin sent abroad by Congress during the Revolution, derived a +degree of unaffected pleasure from the respect felt for Franklin in France +that contrasts most favorably with the base jealousy of Arthur Lee and the +ignoble jealousy of John Adams. After telling how the French populace on a +certain occasion showed Franklin a measure of deference seldom paid to +their first princes of the blood, he says: "When he attended the operas and +plays, similar honors were paid him, and I confess I felt a joy and pride +which was pure and honest, though not disinterested, for I considered it an +honor to be known to be an American and his acquaintance." + +[32] John Adams admits in his Diary that Deane was "active, diligent, +subtle and successful, having accomplished the great purpose of his mission +to advantage." After the recall of Deane from France, Franklin wrote of him +to Henry Laurens: "Having lived intimately with him now fifteen months, the +greatest part of the time in the same House, and been a constant witness of +his public Conduct, I can not omit giving this Testimony, tho. unasked, in +his Behalf, that I esteem him a faithful, active, and able Minister, who, +to my Knowledge, has done in various ways great and important Service to +his Country, whose Interests I wish may always, by every one in her employ, +be as much and as effectually promoted." On other occasions, Franklin spoke +in equally laudatory terms of the abilities and services of Deane. But when +Deane, soured by the persistent malevolence of Arthur Lee and the injustice +of Congress, was weak enough to fall away from "the glorious cause," +Franklin gave him up. "I see no place for him but England," he wrote to +Robert Morris. "He continues, however, to sit croaking at Ghent chagrined, +discontented, and dispirited." Franklin, however, was too nice a judge of +conduct, and of the balanced considerations, which have to be taken into +account in passing upon it, not to refer later to Deane as "poor, unhappy +Deane,"--language such as he would have been the last man in the world to +use with regard to a perfidious scoundrel like Benedict Arnold. + +[33] The Diary of John Adams shows that shortly after he arrived in France +Franklin took pains to lay before him the lamentable situation created by +the impracticable tempers of the Lees and Izard. It would have been well +for the reputation of Adams if this conversation had resulted in a thorough +understanding between Franklin and himself, but the bias that he brought to +France as a member of the Adams-Lee faction in Congress and the inability +of his egotistical, jealous, suspicious and bustling, though honorable and +fearless, nature, to reconcile itself to the overshadowing fame and +influence of Franklin at the French Court drew him into working relations +with Lee and Izard, which abundantly verified all that Franklin had said to +him about them. "There are two men in the world," he declares in his Diary, +"who are men of honor and integrity, I believe, but whose prejudices and +violent tempers would raise quarrels in the Elysian fields, if not in +Heaven." At times the vanity of Adams--easily mortified, easily elated as +all vanity is--was humbled by some fresh proof of the dwarfing prominence +of Franklin. "Neither Lee nor myself is looked upon of much consequence," +he observes in his Diary. On another occasion, when Arthur Lee suggested +that the papers of the mission should be kept in a room in his own house, +Adams objected for the reason, among others, that nine tenths of the public +letters would ever be carried where Dr. Franklin was. These were but +temporary reactions. When down, the vanity of Adams was soon on its legs +again. The reminder given by Vergennes to the officious, tactless +reasonings and strictures, to which he was subjected by Adams, that +Franklin was the sole American plenipotentiary in France, and the steps +that the latter was compelled to take, both by the request of Vergennes and +his own sense of the peril, that such injudicious conduct on the part of +Adams signified to the American cause, to smooth over the rupture, sent +Adams off to Holland in a resentful but subdued state of mind. But his +success in negotiating a loan in Holland and the prospect of engaging in a +matter of such supreme importance as the final negotiations for peace +lifted him up to giddy heights of intoxicated self-importance again. +Referring to the loan in his Diary, he says: "The compliment of _Monsieur_, +_Vous êtes le Washington de la négociation_ (Sir, you are the Washington of +the negotiation) was repeated to me by more than one person.... A few of +these compliments would kill Franklin if they should come to his ears." His +observations in his Diary on Jay and Franklin, when he came over to France +to participate with them in the final negotiations for peace, are equally +characteristic. "Between two as subtle spirits as any in this world, the +one malicious, the other, I think honest, I shall have a delicate, a nice, +a critical part to act. Franklin's cunning will be to divide us; to this +end he will provoke, he will insinuate, he will intrigue, he will +manoeuvre. My curiosity will at least be employed in observing his +invention and his artifice." + +[34] "I think," said Franklin in a letter to Charles W. F. Dumas, in 1778, +"that a young State like a young Virgin, should modestly stay at home, & +wait the Application of Suitors for an Alliance with her; and not run about +offering her Amity to all the World; and hazarding their Refusal." "Our +Virgin," he added a line or so later, "is a jolly one; and tho. at present +not very rich, Will in time be a great Fortune." + +[35] Franklin was entirely cognizant of the motive by which Lee was +influenced. Referring in a letter to Thomas Cushing, dated July 7, 1773, to +censure with which he had been visited for supposed neglect in not sending +earlier intelligence to Massachusetts of certain English measures affecting +her welfare, he said, "This Censure, tho. grievous, does not so much +surprize me, as I apprehended from the Beginning, that between the Friends +of an old Agent, my Predecessor, who thought himself hardly us'd in his +Dismission, and those of a young one impatient for the Succession, my +situation was not likely to be a very comfortable one, as my Faults could +scarce pass unobserved." + +[36] On one occasion this expression gave rise to an incident that is worth +recalling. We tell it as it is told by Parton. A large cake was sent to the +apartment in which the envoys were assembled, bearing this inscription: _Le +digne Franklin_--the worthy Franklin. Upon reading the inscription, Mr. +Deane said: "As usual, Doctor, we have to thank you for our accommodation, +and to appropriate your present to our joint use." "Not at all," said +Franklin, "this must be intended for all the Commissioners; only these +French people can not write English. They mean no doubt, Lee, Deane, +Franklin." "That might answer," remarked the magnanimous Lee, "but we know +that whenever they remember us at all they always put you first." + +[37] "It must," Adams says in his letter to the Boston _Patriot_ of Aug. +21, 1811, with the whiff of bombast that is wafted to us from so many of +his vigorous and vivid utterances, "suffice to say that Mr. Izard, with a +fund of honor, integrity, candor and benevolence in his character, which +must render him eternally estimable in the sight of all moral and social +beings, was, nevertheless, the most passionate, and in his passions the +most violent and unbridled in his expressions, of any man I ever knew." + +[38] In the latter part of his life, it must have severely taxed the memory +of Franklin to recollect all the honors paid to him by educational +institutions and learned societies of one kind or another. The honorary +degree of Master of Arts was conferred on him in July, 1753, by Harvard +College, and in September of the same year by Yale College. In April, 1756, +the degree of Master of Arts was bestowed on him by William and Mary +College. In 1759, he received the degree of Doctor in Laws from the +University of St. Andrews, and in 1762, he was made a Doctor of Civil Laws +by the University of Oxford. At various times in his life, he was elected +an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, an Honorary Fellow of +the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, a member of the Royal Society of +London, one of the eight foreign associates of the Royal Academy of +Sciences at Paris, an honorary member of the Medical Society of London, the +first foreign associate of the Royal Society of Medicine at Paris, and a +member of other learned societies or academies at Padua, Turin, Orleans, +Madrid, Rotterdam, Göttingen and elsewhere. + +[39] "It would be difficult," says Count Ségur, "to describe the eagerness +and delight with which the American envoys, the agents of a people in a +state of insurrection against their monarch, were received in France, in +the bosom of an ancient monarchy. Nothing could be more striking than the +contrast between the luxury of our capital, the elegance of our fashions, +the magnificence of Versailles, the still brilliant remains of the +monarchical pride of Louis XIV., and the polished and superb dignity of our +nobility on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the almost rustic +apparel, the plain but firm demeanor, the free and direct language of the +envoys, whose antique simplicity of dress and appearance seemed to have +introduced within our walls, in the midst of the effeminate and servile +refinement of the eighteenth century, some sages contemporary with Plato, +or republicans of the age of Cato and of Fabius. This unexpected apparition +produced upon us a greater effect in consequence of its novelty, and of its +occurring precisely at the period when literature and philosophy had +circulated amongst us an unusual desire for reforms, a disposition to +encourage innovations, and the seeds of an ardent attachment to liberty." + +[40] Compassion, it must be confessed, was not the only motive that made +Franklin so eager to secure the freedom of his imprisoned countrymen. "If +we once had our Prisoners from England," he wrote to M. de Sartine on Feb. +13, 1780, "several other privateers would immediately be manned with them." + +[41] A Commissioner, Thomas Barclay, was appointed by Congress to audit the +accounts of all the servants of the United States who had been entrusted +with the expenditure of money in Europe during the Revolutionary War. "I +rendered to him," said Franklin in a letter to Cyrus Griffin, the President +of Congress, dated Nov. 29, 1788, "all my accounts, which he examined, and +stated methodically. By this statement he found a balance due me on the 4th +of May, 1785, of 7,533 livres, 19 sols, 3 den., which I accordingly +received of the Congress banker; the difference between my statement and +his being only seven sols, which by mistake I had overcharged;--about three +pence half penny sterling." + +[42] The dogged steadfastness with which Vergennes pursued his task of +humbling the pride and power of England through her rebellious colonies was +in keeping with the main point of what Choiseul had said about him as the +French Ambassador at Constantinople: "The Count de Vergennes has something +to say against whatever is proposed to him, but he never finds any +difficulty in carrying out his instructions. Were we to order him to send +us the Vizier's head, he would write that it was dangerous, but the head +would come." The levity of Maurepas, as President of the Council of State, +and the grave diligence of Vergennes, as Minister for Foreign Affairs, led +D'Aranda to say of them, "I chat with M. de Maurepas, I negotiate with M. +de Vergennes." + +[43] In a letter to William Carmichael in 1788, after saying that he +presumed that there would not be a vote against the election of Washington +to the Presidency, Jefferson added: "It is more doubtful who will be +Vice-President. The age of Dr. Franklin, and the doubt whether he would +accept it, are the only circumstances that admit a question, but that he +would be the man." Some twenty-two years afterwards, he wrote to Col. +William Duane that he believed that a greater or better character than +Franklin had rarely existed. + +[44] Optimist and thorough-going democrat as Franklin was, Shays' Rebellion +and the heated conflict of opposing principles, concomitant with the +adoption of the Federal Constitution, set up a slight current of reaction +in his sanguine nature. On May 25, 1789, he wrote to Charles Carroll of +Carrollton: "We have been guarding against an evil that old States are most +liable to, _excess of power_, in the rulers; but our present danger seems +to be _defect of obedience_ in the subjects." Some six months later, in his +_Queries and Remarks respecting Alterations in the Constitution of +Pennsylvania_, he quoted the advice of the prophet, "Stand in the old ways, +view the ancient Paths, consider them well, and be not among those that are +given to Change." But in this instance Franklin was really invoking the +spirit of conservatism in aid of liberalism; for the occasion for the +Biblical reference was the suggestion that the Pennsylvania Assembly should +no longer consist of a single chamber but of an Upper House based on +property and a Lower House based on population. + +[45] This remark brings up in a timely way another member of the Board of +Trade, Lord Clare, whose habits were such as to aid us in understanding why +the Board did not always retain a clear recollection of its past +transactions. Speaking of an interview with him, Franklin wrote to his son: +"He gave me a great deal of flummery; saying, that though at my Examination +(before the House of Commons) I answered some of his questions a little +pertly, yet he liked me, from that day, for the spirit I showed in defence +of my country; and at parting, after we had drank a bottle and a half of +claret each, he hugged and kissed me, protesting he never in his life met +with a man he was so much in love with." + +[46] The story told by Franklin of a running colloquy between George +Grenville, who had on one occasion, as usual, been denouncing the Americans +as rebels and Colonel Onslow, a warm friend of America, is good enough to +be related. After recalling the Roman practice of sending a commission to a +disaffected province for the purpose of investigating the causes of its +discontent, Onslow declared his willingness, if the House of Commons should +think fit to appoint them, to go over to America _with that honorable +gentleman_. "Upon this there was a great laugh, which continued some time, +and was rather increased by Mr. Grenville's asking, 'Will the gentleman +engage, that I shall be safe there? Can I be assured that I shall be +allowed to come back again to make the report?' As soon as the laugh was so +far subsided, as that Mr. Onslow could be heard again, he added: 'I can not +absolutely engage for the honorable gentleman's safe return, but if he goes +thither upon this service, I am strongly of opinion the _event_ will +contribute greatly to the future quiet of both countries.' On which the +laugh was renewed and redoubled." + +[47] The principal features of a plan for the issuance of a stable colonial +currency proposed by Franklin and Governor Pownall to the British Ministry, +in 1764, 1765 and 1766 were these: bills of credit to a certain amount were +to be printed in England for the use of the Colonies; and a loan office was +to be established in each colony, empowered to issue the bills, take +security for their payment and receive payment of them. They were to be +paid in full in ten years, and were to bear interest at the rate of five +per centum per annum; and one tenth of the principal was to be paid each +year with the proper proportion of interest. They were to be a legal +tender. + +[48] "Here in England," Franklin wrote to Humphrey Marshall on Apr. 22, +1771, "it is well known and understood, that whenever a Manufacture is +established which employs a Number of Hands, it raises the Value of Lands +in the neighbouring Country all around it; partly by the greater Demand +near at hand for the produce of the Land; and partly from the Plenty of +Money drawn by the Manufacturers to that part of the Country. It seems +therefore the Interest of all our Farmers and Owners of Lands, to encourage +our Young Manufactures in preference to foreign ones imported among us from +distant Countries." + +[49] + + The patriot, fresh from Freedom's Councils come, + Now pleas'd retires to lash his slaves at home; + Or woo, perhaps, some black Aspasia's charms, + And dream of freedom in his bondsmaid's arms. + + To Thomas Hume, Esq., M.D. + From the City of Washington. + +[50] By his will Franklin released his son-in-law from the payment of a +bond for £2172, 5s, with the request that he would immediately after the +death of the testator set free "his negro man Bob." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +Franklin as a Man of Science + + +Franklin, as we have said, was primarily a man of action. If we do not +always think of him as deeply involved in what Goethe calls "being's ocean, +action's storm," it is only because he moved from appointed task to +appointed task with such frictionless self-command and ease. But, +throughout his life, his mind was quick to make excursions into the domain +of philosophical speculation and experiment, whenever business cares or +political responsibilities allowed it to do so. Poor Richard would seem to +have little in common with Prometheus, but Prometheus, if Condorcet is to +be believed, as well as Poor Richard, Franklin was; to say nothing of other +transmigrations. That his interest in natural phenomena began at a very +early age, is disclosed by his _Journal of a Voyage from London to +Philadelphia_ in 1726, when he was in his twenty-first year. Throughout the +course of this voyage, his faculties were intently concentrated upon all +the marvels of the sea and its setting. With sedulous minuteness, he +registers the state of the winds each day, and records the impression made +on him by every object with a secret at its heart, to be plucked out by an +inquisitive mind. A lunar rainbow, an eclipse of the sun, which darkened +ten twelfths of his disk, an eclipse of the moon, which spread over six +digits of her surface, dolphins in their bright mail of mixed green, silver +and gold, a shark moving around the ship in a slow, majestic manner, and +attended by an obsequious retinue of pilot fish, schools of harried flying +fish, groups of young crabs, clinging to seaweeds, with indented leaves +about three quarters of an inch long, and small yellow berries filled with +nothing but wind, a white, tropical bird, said never to be seen further +north than latitude 40, and marked by short wings and a single tail +feather, other birds, too near the western continent not to be Americans, +are among the things that the open-eyed and thoughtful youth jotted down in +his Journal in terms that plainly enough indicated not only the eager +curiosity but the exactitude of a future man of science. As almost always, +the child was but the father of the man. Upon each of his subsequent six +voyages across the Atlantic, Franklin exhibited the same, though severer, +and more practised, vigilance in observing everything that the ocean, +including the instruments of commerce afloat on it, have for a penetrating +and suggestive intelligence. How essentially he was a man of science, is +demonstrated by the fact that, whenever he was on the element, where alone +he could hope for exemption from the political demands of his countrymen, +his intellect turned at once with ardor to the study of Nature. Old and +feeble as he was, he wrote no less than three valuable dissertations on his +last voyage across the Atlantic, one on the causes and cure of smoky +chimneys, one on his smoke-consuming stove, and a third, distinguished by +an extraordinary wealth of knowledge and observation, on the construction, +equipment and provisioning of ships, and the winds, currents and +temperature of the sea; which was accompanied by valuable thermometric +tables, based upon observations made by him during three of his +transatlantic voyages. The maritime essay was written with the closest +regard to detail, and contains such a mass of information and luminous +comment as has rarely been condensed into the same space. It makes up some +thirty-four quarto pages of Smyth's edition of Franklin's works, exclusive +of the thermometric notes. The other two essays occupy some forty-nine +pages more. All three are elucidated by numerous explanatory charts and +illustrations, and are marked by the mastery of scientific principles, +which no mere artificer or artisan could have displayed in discussing such +topics; but, at the same time, they could not have been more intensely +practical, as respects minutiæ of construction, if Franklin had been a +professional sailor, mason or stove-maker. The maritime observations range +from the Chinese method of dividing the hulls of vessels into separate +compartments, which is now regarded as one of the most efficient devices +for securing the safety of ocean greyhounds, to an inquiry into the reason +why fowls served up at sea are usually too tough to be readily masticated +and the best means of dishing soup on a rolling and pitching vessel. + +After his return in his youth from London to Philadelphia, Franklin was for +a long time too much immersed in business and civic projects to give much +attention to natural phenomena. "Why does the flame of a candle tend upward +in a spire?", "whence comes the dew, that stands on the outside of a +tankard that has cold water in it in the summer time?", are among the few +questions of a scientific nature that he appears to have framed for the +discussions of the Junto; and they are elementary enough. But with the +coming of pecuniary ease, the natural bent of his mind soon asserted +itself. While in Boston in 1746, he happened to see some electrical +experiments performed by a Dr. Spence, who had recently arrived from +Scotland. They were clumsily conducted, but crude as they were, they filled +his mind with mixed sensations of surprise and delight; so much so that, +when, shortly after his return to Philadelphia from Boston, the Library +Company found itself the owner of a glass tube, for the production of +electricity by friction, given to it by Peter Collinson, then a Fellow of +the Royal Society of London, with instructions for its use, he eagerly +availed himself of Collinson's generosity to repeat the experiments that he +had witnessed at Boston, and, by continuous practice, became very expert in +making them as well as others. Indeed, his house was soon overrun to such +an extent with eager visitors that he was compelled in self-defence to +relieve it of its congestion by supplying some of his friends with similar +tubes blown at the Philadelphia glass-house. One of these friends was his +ingenious neighbor, Kinnersley, who chanced at the time to be out of +business. Franklin advised him to exhibit the experiments for profit, and +followed up the advice by preparing two lectures for him, in which the +details of the experiments were clearly set forth. Kinnersley himself +employed skilled workmen to make the necessary electrical apparatus for +him, modelled upon the rough agencies designed by Franklin for himself, and +used in his own exhibitions. The lectures, when delivered by him in +Philadelphia, were so well attended that he made a tour of all the chief +towns of the Colonies with a considerable degree of pecuniary success. Some +years later, similar instructions given by Franklin to Domien, a Greek +priest, proved so useful to him on a long tramp that he wrote to his +benefactor that he had lived eight hundred miles upon electricity, and that +it had been meat, drink and clothing to him. When Franklin last heard from +him, he was contemplating a journey from Havana to Vera Cruz, thence +through Mexico to Acapulco, on its western coast, and from Acapulco to +Manila, and from Manila through China, India, Persia and Turkey to his home +in Transylvania; all with electricity as his main _viaticum_. + +Franklin's own experiments fortunately ended in something better than +vagabondage, however respectable or profitable. Grateful to Collinson for +his timely gifts, he wrote to him several letters, laying before him the +results of the Philadelphia experiments. Collinson procured for these +letters the privilege of being read before the Royal Society, where they +did not excite enough notice to be printed among its Transactions. Another +letter, one to Kinnersley, in which Franklin propounded the identity of +lightning and electricity, he sent to Dr. Mitchell, an acquaintance of his, +and also a member of the Royal Society, who replied by telling him that it +had been read before the Society, but had been laughed at by the +connoisseurs. Then it was that the happy obstetric suggestion of Dr. +Fothergill that the letters were of too much value to be stifled led +Collinson to gather them together for publication by Cave in the +_Gentleman's Magazine_. They were not published in this magazine, but Cave +did bring them out in pamphlet form with a preface by Dr. Fothergill. The +event showed that he and the general public had more acumen than the sages +of the Royal Society, for the letters, when subsequently published in a +quarto volume, with additions by Franklin, ran through five editions, +without the cost of a penny to Cave for copyright. It was from France, +however, that they first received the full meed of prompt approbation that +they deserved. A copy of them happened to fall into the hands of Buffon, +who prevailed upon D'Alibard to translate them into French. Their +publication in that language provoked an attack upon them by the Abbé +Nollet, Preceptor in Natural Philosophy to the Royal Family, and the author +of a popular theory of Electricity. At first, the Abbé could not believe +that America was capable of producing such letters, and insisted that they +must have been fabricated at Paris for the purpose of discrediting his +system. In fact, he even doubted whether there was such a person as +Franklin, but, afterwards, being convinced upon that point, he published a +volume of letters, mainly addressed to Franklin, in which he defended his +own theory, and denied the accuracy of Franklin's experiments and +conclusions. Le Roy, of the Royal Academy of Sciences, rejoined on behalf +of Franklin, who had decided to let the truth be its own champion, and +easily refuted the Abbé. The papers could not have asked for a better +advertisement than this controversy. They were further translated into the +Italian, German and Latin languages, and Franklin's theory of electricity +was so generally adopted by the learned men of Europe, in preference to +that of the Abbé, that the latter lived, Franklin tells us, to see himself +the last of his sect, except Monsieur B. of Paris, his _élève_ and +immediate disciple. It is surprising that even the solitary _élève_ should +have been left clinging to his master; for, in the meantime, the most +momentous experiment, suggested by Franklin in his letters, had been +performed, substantially in the manner outlined by him, with brilliant +success, by D'Alibard, on a hill at Marly-la-Ville, where a pointed rod of +iron, forty feet high, and planted on an electric stand, had been erected +for the purpose of carrying it into execution. When a thundercloud passed +over the rod on May 10, 1752, between 2 and 3 o'clock in the afternoon, the +persons, set by D'Alibard to watch it, had drawn near "and attracted from +it sparks of fire, perceiving the same kind of commotions as in the common +electrical experiments." A week later, the fire and crackling sound, +elicited by M. de Lor from a rod, erected at his house in Paris on a cake +of resin, and electrified by a cloud between 4 and 5 o'clock in the +afternoon, told the same story. He had previously performed what he called +the "Philadelphia experiments" in the presence of Louis XV., who seems to +have been as much delighted with them as if they had been a new mistress. +In a short time, they became so popular that we are told by Franklin that +"all the curious of Paris flocked to see them." One of the results of the +fame acquired by him in France was a letter written by Dr. Wright, an +English physician, then in Paris, to a member of the Royal Society, +apprising the latter of the excitement that the experiments had created in +France, and expressing his astonishment that Franklin's papers had been so +little noticed in England. Quickened by Dr. Wright's words, the Society +reconsidered the letters which had been read before them, and caused an +abstract of them and the other letters on electricity, sent to England by +Franklin, to be printed among its Transactions. Afterwards, when several +members of the Society had themselves drawn down lightning from the clouds, +it elected Franklin a member, and, in view of the fact that the honor had +not been sought by him, voted that he "was not to pay anything"; which +meant that he was to be liable for neither admission fee nor annual dues, +and was even to receive his copy of the Transactions of the Society free of +charge. Nor did it stop here. It also awarded to Franklin, for the year +1753, the Copley gold medal, accompanied by an address, in which Lord +Macclesfield, its President, endeavored to make full amends to him for its +belated recognition of the value of his discoveries. + +The suggestion by Franklin, which led to the experiments of D'Alibard and +De Lor, is as matter-of-fact as a cooking recipe. + + To determine the question [he said in a letter to Peter + Collinson] whether the clouds that contain lightning + are electrified or not, I would propose an experiment + to be try'd where it may be done conveniently. On the + top of some high tower or steeple, place a kind of + centry box,... big enough to contain a man and an + electrical stand. From the middle of the stand let an + iron rod rise and pass bending out of the door, and + then upright 20 or 30 feet, pointed very sharp at the + end. If the electrical stand be kept clean and dry, a + man standing on it when such clouds are passing low, + might be electrified and afford sparks, the rod drawing + fire to him from a cloud. If any danger to the man + should be apprehended (though I think there would be + none), let him stand on the floor of his box, and now + and then bring near to the rod the loop of a wire that + has one end fastened to the leads, he holding it by a + wax handle; so the sparks, if the rod is electrified, + will strike from the rod to the wire, and not affect + him. + +Before the news of the success achieved by D'Alibard and De Lor reached +Franklin, he himself had conducted a similar experiment "though made in a +different and more easy manner." This experiment has become one of the +veriest commonplaces of physical science. It was performed, when a thunder +gust was coming on, in a field near Philadelphia, with such simple +materials as a silk kite, topped off with a foot or more of sharp pointed +wire, and controlled by a twine string, equipped with a key for casting off +the electric sparks, and ending in a silk ribbon to secure the safety of +the hand that held it. The whole construction is set out in a letter +written to Collinson by Franklin shortly after the incident, in which, with +his usual modesty, the latter describes the kite as if he had had nothing +to do with it. Something like the feelings of Sir Isaac Newton, when the +falling apple brought to his ear the real music of the spheres, must have +been those of Franklin, when the loose filaments of twine bristled up +stiffly, as if stirred by some violated instinct of wild freedom, and the +stream of sparks from the key told him that he was right in supposing that +the mysterious and appalling agency, which had for centuries been +associated in the human mind with the resistless wrath of Omnipotence, was +but the same subtle fluid that had so often lit up his electrical apparatus +with its playful corruscations. + +The letters to Collinson contained another suggestion almost equally +pregnant. Speaking of the power of pointed conductors to draw off +electricity noiselessly and harmlessly, Franklin asked, + + May not the knowledge of this power of points be of use + to mankind, in preserving houses, churches, ships, &c. + from the stroke of lightning, by directing us to fix on + the highest parts of those edifices, upright rods of + iron made sharp as a needle, and gilt to prevent + rusting, and from the foot of those rods a wire down + the outside of the building into the ground, or down + round one of the shrouds of a ship, and down her side + till it reaches the water? Would not these pointed rods + probably draw the electrical fire silently out of a + cloud before it came nigh enough to strike, and thereby + secure us from that most sudden and terrible mischief? + +The suggestion was but slowly adopted, not in Europe, indeed, at all, until +the efficacy of the lightning rod in protecting buildings had been +generally recognized in America. In time, however, the device came into use +both in Great Britain and on the Continent; Voltaire being one of the first +persons in Geneva to erect one, and, wherever it was erected, it helped to +confirm the fame of Franklin by its silent effect upon the human +imagination. In recent years, the lightning rod, once in almost universal +use in America, has fallen into neglect, but the explanation of this fact +is to be found not in any just doubts about its utility, when properly +constructed, affixed and grounded, but in the growth of fire insurance, and +the inutility, or danger, of such rods, if carelessly set in place.[51] + +The domestication of lightning and the invention of the lightning rod were +the two things to which Franklin was principally indebted for his brilliant +reputation as a philosopher. At this day, the application of electricity to +common uses is so familiar to us that it is hard, without a little +reflection, to realize how well calculated his electrical achievements +were to send a thrill of astonishment and awe through the human mind. Of +all the manifestations of the physical world, lightning with its +inscrutable, swift, and all but irresistible, stroke, followed by the +sublime detonations of thunder, is the one most suggestive of supernatural +influence exerted by an all-powerful deity. The mythological dreams of the +Greeks, the visions of the Old Testament, the simple emotions of the savage +had all paid their homage of dread to the fearful force--like a madman +pitilessly destructive, and yet like a madman diverted from its rage by the +barest trifle--which had clothed Jove with the greater part of his +grandeur, licked up even the water that was in the trench about the altar, +built by Elijah in the name of the Lord, and filled the breast of the +Indian with superstitious terror. Discovery, that laid bare the real nature +and destructive limits of this force, could not fail to excite an +extraordinary degree of attention everywhere. It was the singular fortune +of Franklin, though a practical, sober-minded denizen of the earth, if ever +man was, to have enjoyed in his day a reputation not unlike that of a +divinity of the upper ether.[52] It so happens that the atmosphere was, in +one way or another, the home of all the scientific problems which engaged +his interest most deeply. His philosophical Pegasus, so little akin to the +humble brute bestrid by Poor Richard, was "a beast for Perseus--pure air +and fire"; and especially, it is needless to say, was this true of his +relations to the lightning. When the fact became known throughout the +civilized world that human ingenuity had succeeded in even snaring it, +Franklin was exalted for a time to a seat on Olympus. All the literature +of the period, as well as that of a much later period, bears out the +statement that rarely has any single, peaceful incident ever so fired the +human imagination.[53] For many years, the natural background for a +portrait of Franklin might have been a bank of cloud lit up by the +incessant play of summer lightning. _Eripuit coelo fulmen sceptrumque +tyrannis_, was but the mightiest of the electrical discharges that flattery +poured upon him. Turn where we may to the poetry of the latter half of the +eighteenth century, and of the earlier part of the nineteenth, whether +epigram or otherwise, we are likely to come upon some imprint left upon the +thought of those periods by the subjugation of lightning. + +The interest of Franklin in electrical science was but another sequel of +the world-wide avidity with which learned men had recently turned to the +study of that subject. One of them, Grey, had pursued a series of +experiments for the purpose of determining the relative conductivity of +various substances, another, Du Fay, had erroneously classified electricity +as resinous and vitreous, and the perfected Leyden Jar particularly had +given a new momentum to the progress of electrical investigation. Into this +movement, after witnessing Dr. Spence's awkward experiments at Boston, +Franklin threw himself with the utmost enthusiasm, and his discovery of +the identity of lightning and electricity and his lightning-rod conception +were but the chief fruits of this enthusiasm. Between the _Autobiography_ +and his letters, we are at no loss to follow closely the steps by which he +reached all the results which have given him such a high position as an +electrical investigator. "I purchased all Dr. Spence's apparatus ..." he +tells us in the _Autobiography_, "and I proceeded in my electrical +experiments with great alacrity." How keen this alacrity became, after he +had been rubbing for a time the glass tube, sent over to Philadelphia by +Collinson, may be seen in what he wrote to Collinson himself on March 28, +1747: + + For my own part, I never was before engaged in any + study that so totally engrossed my attention and my + time as this has lately done; for what with making + experiments when I can be alone, and repeating them to + my Friends and Acquaintance, who, from the novelty of + the thing, come continually in crouds to see them, I + have, during some months past, had little leisure for + anything else. + +The result of this experimentation was the various letters to Collinson and +others that constitute Franklin's highest claim to distinction as a man of +science. By following them in their chronological order, the reader can +trace with little difficulty the genesis of each of his more valuable +conclusions touching electricity. They are distinguished by remarkable +simplicity and force of reasoning and by a clearness of statement as +transparent as crystal. Moreover, they are even enlivened at times by +gleams of fancy or humor. In a word they indisputably merit the judgment +that Sir Humphry Davy, no mean judge of style as well as scientific truth, +passes upon them: + + The style and manner of his publication on electricity + are almost as worthy of admiration as the doctrine it + contains. He has endeavoured to remove all mystery and + obscurity from the subject. He has written equally for + the uninitiated and the philosopher; and he has + rendered his details amusing as well as perspicuous, + elegant as well as simple. Science appears in his + language in a dress wonderfully decorous, the best + adapted to display her native loveliness. He has in no + instance exhibited that false dignity, by which + philosophy is kept aloof from common applications; and + he has sought rather to make her a useful inmate and + servant in the common habitations of man, than to + preserve her merely as an object of admiration in + temples and palaces. + +While recalling these words, it is not amiss to recall, too, what Lord +Brougham had to say about the agencies with which Franklin conducted his +experiments. + + He could make an experiment [said Brougham] with less + apparatus and conduct his experimental inquiry to a + discovery with more ordinary materials than any other + philosopher we ever saw. With an old key, a silk + thread, some sealing wax and a sheet of paper he + discovered the identity of lightning and electricity. + +The truth of these observations is strikingly instanced in a story told of +Franklin in Pettigrew's _Life of Lettsom_. When Henry Smeathman was +insisting that the flight of birds is on inclined planes, and that they +could not fly at all, but would simply float with the wind, if they were +not heavier than the air, Franklin launched half a sheet of paper obliquely +into the air, observing, as he watched its course, that that was an evident +proof of the propriety of Smeathman's doctrines. + +In a letter to Collinson, dated July 11, 1747, Franklin communicated to him +the earliest results of his experimental use of the glass tube that +Collinson had sent over to Philadelphia. The first phenomenon, which fixed +his attention, was the wonderful effect of pointed bodies in drawing off +the electrical fire. This was the lightning rod in its protoplasmal stage. +The manner in which he described the experiment, by which this particular +truth was demonstrated, is a good specimen of his remarkable faculty for +simple and clear statement: + + Place an iron shot of three or four inches diameter on + the mouth of a clean dry glass bottle. By a fine silken + thread from the ceiling, right over the mouth of the + bottle, suspend a small cork ball, about the bigness of + a marble; the thread of such a length, as that the cork + ball may rest against the side of the shot. Electrify + the shot, and the ball will be repelled to the distance + of four or five inches, more or less, according to the + quantity of Electricity. When in this state, if you + present to the shot the point of a long slender sharp + bodkin, at six or eight inches distance, the repellency + is instantly destroy'd, and the cork flies to the shot. + A blunt body must be brought within an inch, and draw a + spark, to produce the same effect. To prove that the + electrical fire is _drawn off_ by the point, if you + take the blade of the bodkin out of the wooden handle, + and fix it in a stick of sealing wax, and then present + it at the distance aforesaid, or if you bring it very + near, no such effect follows; but sliding one finger + along the wax till you touch the blade, and the ball + flies to the shot immediately. If you present the point + in the dark, you will see, sometimes at a foot + distance, and more, a light gather upon it, like that + of a firefly, or glowworm; the less sharp the point, + the nearer you must bring it to observe the light; and, + at whatever distance you see the light, you may draw + off the electrical fire, and destroy the repellency. If + a cork ball so suspended be repelled by the tube, and a + point be presented quick to it, tho' at a considerable + distance, 'tis surprizing to see how suddenly it flies + back to the tube. Points of wood will do near as well + as those of iron, provided the wood is not dry; but + perfectly dry wood will no more conduct electricity + than sealing-wax. + +The repellency between the ball and the shot was likewise destroyed, +Franklin stated, 1, by sifting fine sand on it; this did it gradually, 2, +by breathing on it, 3, by making a smoke about it from burning wood, and 4, +by candlelight, even though the candle was at a foot distance; these did +it suddenly. + + * * * * * + +The same result was also produced, he found, by the light of a bright coal +from a wood fire, or the light of red-hot iron; but not at so great a +distance. Such was not the effect, however, he said, of smoke from dry +resin dropped on hot iron. It was merely attracted by both shot and cork +ball, forming proportionable atmospheres round them, making them look +beautifully, somewhat like some of the figures in Burnet's or Whiston's +_Theory of the Earth_. + +Franklin also noted the fact that, unlike fire-light, sunlight, when thrown +on both cork and shot, did not impair the repellency between them in the +least. + +In the same letter, guided by the belief that he had formed that +electricity is not created by friction but, except when accumulated or +depleted by special causes, is equally diffused through material substances +generally, he also reached the conclusion that electrical discharges are +due to circuits set up by substances that offer little resistance to the +transit of the electrical current between bodies charged with more than the +ordinary quantity of electrical energy and bodies not in that condition. In +other words, electricity is always alert to restore its equilibrium when +lost, and, if accumulated beyond its normal measure in one body, seeks with +violent eagerness, as soon as a favorable medium of transmission is +presented to it, to pass on its surplus of electrical energy to another +body less amply supplied. + +These conceptions, too, which lie at the very foundations of modern +electrical science, are illustrated by Franklin with extraordinary +simplicity and clearness as follows: + + 1. A person standing on wax, and rubbing the tube, and + another person on wax drawing the fire, they will both + of them, (provided they do not stand so as to touch one + another) appear to be electrised, to a person standing + on the floor; that is, he will perceive a spark on + approaching each of them with his knuckle. + + 2. But, if the persons on wax touch one another during + the exciting of the tube, neither of them will appear + to be electrised. + + 3. If they touch one another after exciting the tube, + and drawing the fire as aforesaid, there will be a + stronger spark between them, than was between either of + them and the person on the floor. + + 4. After such strong spark, neither of them discover + any electricity. + + These appearances we attempt to account for thus: We + suppose, as aforesaid, that electrical fire is a common + element, of which every one of the three persons above + mentioned has his equal share, before any operation is + begun with the tube. A, who stands on wax and rubs the + tube, collects the electrical fire from himself into + the glass; and his communication with the common stock + being cut off by the wax, his body is not again + immediately supply'd. B, (who stands on wax likewise) + passing his knuckle along near the tube, receives the + fire which was collected by the glass from A; and his + communication with the common stock being likewise cut + off, he retains the additional quantity received. To C, + standing on the floor, both appear to be electrised: + for he having only the middle quantity of electrical + fire, receives a spark upon approaching B, who has an + over quantity; but gives one to A, who has an under + quantity. If A and B approach to touch each other, the + spark is stronger, because the difference between them + is greater: After such touch there is no spark between + either of them and C, because the electrical fire in + all is reduced to the original equality. If they touch + while electrising, the equality is never destroy'd, the + fire only circulating. Hence have arisen some new terms + among us: We say, B, (and bodies like circumstanced) is + electrised _positively_; A, _negatively_. Or rather, B + is electrised _plus_; A, _minus_. And we daily in our + experiments electrise bodies _plus_ or _minus_, as we + think proper. To electrise _plus_ or _minus_, no more + needs to be known than this, that the parts of the tube + or sphere that are rubbed, do, in the instant of the + friction, attract the electrical fire, and therefore + take it from the thing rubbing: The same parts + immediately, as the friction upon them ceases, are + disposed to give the fire they have received, to + anybody that has less. Thus you may circulate it, as + Mr. _Watson_ has shown; you may also accumulate or + subtract it upon, or from anybody, as you connect that + body with the rubber or with the receiver, the + communication with the common stock being cut off. + +The same letter recounts some of the tricks that Franklin and his +fellow-experimenters were in the habit of making their new plaything +perform. They fired spirits, lit candles just blown out, mimicked +lightning, produced sparks with the touch of the finger, on the human hand +or face, and gave electrical kisses. Other feats consisted in animating an +artificial spider in such a way as to keep him oscillating in a very +lifelike and entertaining manner between two wires, and lighting up the +gilding on the covers of a book with a brilliant flash. This letter also +shows that the provincial philosophers had already made improvements in the +usual electrical methods. They had found that it was better to fill the +phial with granulated lead than with water because of the superior facility +with which the former could be warmed, and kept warm and dry in a damp +place. They rubbed their tubes with buckskin, and, by observing certain +precautions, such as never sullying the tubes by handling them, and keeping +them in tight, close-fitting cases of pasteboard, lined with flannel, +increased their efficiency. Their spheres for charging phials with +electricity were mounted on iron axes with a small handle on one end, with +which they could be set revolving like a common grindstone. It was in this +same letter that Franklin with his usual generosity was careful to state +that the power of pointed bodies to throw off as well as draw off the +electrical fire was a discovery of his friend Hopkinson, and that the +revolving sphere used by them was the invention of his friend Syng. About a +month later, Franklin wrote to Collinson that, in the course of further +experiments, he had observed several phenomena which made him distrust some +of his former conclusions. "If there is no other use discover'd of +Electricity," he said, "this however is something considerable, that it may +_help to make a vain man humble_." + +Another letter from Franklin to Collinson, written about two weeks later, +communicated to him some valuable observations upon "M. Muschenbroeck's +wonderful bottle"--the Leyden Jar. This bottle was a mere ordinary bottle, +with a common cork in its neck, into which a common wire had been inserted. +He wrote that, at the same time that the wire and the top of the bottle +were electrised positively or plus, the bottom of the bottle was electrised +negatively or minus, in exact proportion; the consequence was that, +whatever quantity of electrical fire was thrown in at the top, an equal +quantity went out at the bottom until, if the process was kept up long +enough, the point was reached in the operation, when no more could be +thrown into the upper part of the bottle, because no more could be drawn +out of the lower part. If the attempt was made to throw more in, the fire +was spewed back through the wire, or flew out in loud cracks through the +sides of the bottle. + +He also noted that an equilibrium could not be restored in the bottle by +inward communication or contact of the parts, but only by a communication, +formed without the bottle between its top and bottom. + +He also noted that no electrical fire could be thrown into the top of the +bottle, when none could get out at its bottom, either because the bottom +was too thick, or because it stood on some non-conducting material, and +likewise that, when the bottle was electrified, but little of the +electrical fire could be drawn from the top by touching the wire, unless +an equal quantity could at the same time get in at the bottom. + + So wonderfully [he adds] are these two states of + electricity, the _plus_ and _minus_, combined and + balanced in this miraculous bottle! situated and + related to each in a manner that I can by no means + comprehend! If it were possible that a bottle should in + one part contain a quantity of air strongly comprest, + and in another part a perfect vacuum, we know the + equilibrium would be instantly restored _within_. But + here we have a bottle containing at the same time a + _plenum_ of electrical fire, and a _vacuum_ of the same + fire; and yet the equilibrium cannot be restored + between them but by a communication without! though the + _plenum_ presses violently to expand, and the hungry + vacuum seems to attract as violently in order to be + filled. + +The letter concludes with an elaborate statement of the experiments by +which the correctness of its conclusions could be established. + +Franklin's next discovery communicated to Collinson in a letter dated the +succeeding year was that, when the bottle was electrified, the electric +fluid resided in the glass itself of the bottle. The manner in which he +proved this fact is a good example of his inductive thoroughness. + + Purposing [he said] to analyze the electrified bottle, + in order to find wherein its strength lay, we placed it + on glass, and drew out the cork and wire, which for + that purpose had been loosely put in. Then taking the + bottle in one hand, and bringing a finger of the other + near its mouth, a strong spark came from the water, and + the shock was as violent as if the wire had remained in + it, which shewed that the force did not lie in the + wire. Then, to find if it resided in the water, being + crouded into and condensed in it, as confin'd by the + glass, which had been our former opinion, we + electrified the bottle again, and, placing it on glass, + drew out the wire and cork as before; then, taking up + the bottle, we decanted all its water into an empty + bottle, which likewise stood on glass; and taking up + that other bottle, we expected, if the force resided in + the water, to find a shock from it; but there was + none. We judged then, that it must either be lost in + decanting, or remain in the first bottle. The latter we + found to be true; for that bottle on trial gave the + shock, though filled up as it stood with fresh + unelectrified water from a teapot. + +By a similar course of experimentation with sash glass and lead plates, he +also demonstrated that the form of the glass in the bottle was immaterial, +that the power resided in the glass as glass, and that the non-electrics in +contact served only like the armature of a loadstone to unite the force of +the several parts, and to bring them at once to any point desired; it being +the property of a non-electric that the whole body instantly receives or +gives what electric fire is given to, or taken from, anyone of its parts. +These experiments suggested the idea of intensifying the application of +electrical forces by grouping numerous electrical centres. + + We made [he said] what we called an _electrical + battery_, consisting of eleven panes of large + sash-glass, arm'd with thin leaden plates, pasted on + each side, placed vertically, and supported at two + inches distance on silk cords, with thick hooks of + leaden wire, one from each side, standing upright, + distant from each other, and convenient communications + of wire and chain, from the giving side of one pane, to + the receiving side of the other; that so the whole + might be charged together, and with the same labour as + one single pane; and another contrivance to bring the + giving sides, after charging, in contact with one long + wire, and the receivers with another, which two long + wires would give the force of all the plates of glass + at once through the body of any animal forming the + circle with them. The plates may also be discharged + separately, or any number together that is required. + +When the idea of the electrical battery was formed by him, Franklin was not +aware that Smeaton and Bains had previously assembled panes of glass for +the purpose of giving an electrical shock. + +At the time that this letter was written, Franklin had added to his +electrical exploits that of electrifying a mezzotint of the King in such a +manner that, if anyone attempted to take the crown off his head, he would +receive a "terrible blow." + + If the picture were highly charged [he said], the + consequence might perhaps be as fatal as that of high + treason. + + The operator [he continues], who holds the picture by + the upper end, where the inside of the frame is not + gilt, to prevent its falling, feels nothing of the + shock, and may touch the face of the picture without + danger, which he pretends is a test of his loyalty. If + a ring of persons take the shock among them, the + experiment is called _The Conspirators_. + +Another far more significant exploit was the application of electrical +energy in such a way as to set an electrical Jack revolving with such force +and swiftness as to carry a spitted fowl around before a fire with a motion +fit for roasting. + +This wheel was driven by an electrical battery, but Franklin also devised +what he called a self-moving wheel that was, by a different electrical +method, revolved with so much force and rapidity that he thought that it +might be used for the ringing of chimes and the movement of light-made +orreries. And after observing that a thin glass bubble, about an inch in +diameter, weighing only six grains, being half filled with water, partly +gilt on the outside, and furnished with a wire hook, gave, when +electrified, as great a shock as a man can well bear, Franklin exclaims, +"How great must be the quantity (of electrical fire) in this small portion +of glass! It seems as if it were of its very substance and essence. Perhaps +if that due quantity of electrical fire so obstinately retained by glass, +could be separated from it, it would no longer be glass; it might lose its +transparency, or its brittleness, or its elasticity." + +This letter also reaches the conclusion that bodies, having less than the +common quantity of electricity, repel each other, as well as those that +have none. + +It concludes with a lively paragraph: + + Chagrined a little that we have been hitherto able to + produce nothing in this way of use to mankind; and the + hot weather coming on, when electrical experiments are + not so agreeable, it is proposed to put an end to them + for this season, somewhat humorously, in a party of + pleasure on the banks of _Skuylkil_. Spirits, at the + same time, are to be fired by a spark sent from side to + side through the river, without any other conductor + than the water; an experiment which we some time since + performed, to the amazement of many. A turkey is to be + killed for our dinner by the _electrical shock_, and + roasted by the _electrical jack_, before a fire kindled + by the _electrified bottle_; when the healths of all + the famous electricians in _England_, _Holland_, + _France_ and _Germany_ are to be drank in _electrified + bumpers_, under the discharge of guns from the + _electrical_ battery. + +An electrified bumper, a note to the letter explained, was a small thin +glass tumbler, nearly filled with wine, and charged, which, when brought to +the lips of a person, gave him a shock, if he was close-shaved, and did not +breathe on the liquor. Another note states that the biggest animal that the +experimenters had yet killed was a hen. + +A later letter to Collinson on the phenomena of thunder-gusts takes +Franklin away from the Leyden Jar of the laboratory to the stupendous +batteries of the outer universe--from the point of a bodkin to the lofty +natural or artificial objects, upon which lightning descends from the +illimitable sky. "As electrified clouds pass over a country," he remarks, +"high hills and high trees, lofty towers, spires, masts of ships, chimneys, +&c., as so many prominencies and points, draw the electrical fire, and the +whole cloud discharges there." From this observation to the lightning rod +was but a short step. + +Another letter to Collinson in the succeeding year brings us to the +lightning rod in principle if not in name. Speaking of what a sea captain +had said of luminous objects, which had settled on the spintles at the +topmast heads of his ship before an electrical shock, and burned like very +large torches, he says: + + According to my opinion, the electrical fire was then + drawing off, as by points, from the cloud; the + largeness of the flame betokening the great quantity of + electricity in the cloud: and had there been a good + wire communication from the spintle heads to the sea, + that could have conducted more freely than tarred + ropes, or masts of turpentine wood, I imagine there + would either have been no stroke; or, if a stroke, the + wire would have conducted it all into the sea without + damage to the ship. + +In the same letter, there is an adumbration of his grandest experiment, +when he speaks of the flash from two of his jars as "our mimic lightning." + +This letter also shows that with electricity Franklin had frequently +imparted polarity to needles and reversed it at pleasure. Wilson, at +London, he said, had failed to produce these results because he had tried +it on too large masses and with too small force. The letter also evidences +the fact that he had employed the electric spark for the practical purpose +of firing gunpowder. + +Another letter to Collinson dated July 29, 1750, is accompanied by an +additional paper on the properties and effects of the Electrical Matter. It +acknowledges the debt that Franklin owed to Collinson for the glass tube +and the instructions which attended it, and to the Proprietary for the +generous present of a complete electrical apparatus which "that bountiful +benefactor to our library," as he calls him, had made to it. The telegraph, +the Marconi tower, the telephone, the electric bulb, the electric +automobile and the trolley car rise up before us when we read this +observation in the paper that accompanied the letter: "The beneficial uses +of this electric fluid in the creation, we are not yet well acquainted +with, though doubtless such there are, and those very considerable." The +paper is the most important that Franklin ever wrote on electricity; +containing as it does the two suggestions which, when carried into +execution, made his name famous throughout the world, that is to say, his +suggestion, already quoted by us at length, that houses, churches and ships +might be protected by upright rods of iron, and his suggestion, already +quoted by us, too, as to how the identity of lightning and electricity +could be established. The point of the bodkin and the electrified shot and +ball, and the mimic brightness, agility and fury of the lurking fire in the +wonderful bottle had led, step by step, to two of the most splendid +conceptions in the early history of electrical science.[54] + +With the discovery that electricity and lightning were the same thing, the +real achievements of Franklin in the province of electricity came to an +end. But he still continued his electrical experiments with undiminished +ardor. We find him on one occasion prostrating with a single shock six +persons who were so obliging as to lend themselves to the pursuit of +scientific truth. Twice he was the victim of his own inadvertence. Speaking +of one of these occasions, in a letter to a friend in Boston, he said: + + The flash was very great, and the crack as loud as a + pistol; yet, my senses being instantly gone, I neither + saw the one nor heard the other; nor did I feel the + stroke on my hand, though I afterwards found it raised + a round swelling where the fire entered, as big as half + a pistol-bullet; by which you may judge of the + quickness of the electrical fire, which by this + instance seems to be greater than that of sound, light, + or animal sensation.... I then felt what I know not how + well to describe; a universal blow throughout my whole + body from head to foot, which seemed within as well as + without; after which the first thing I took notice of + was a violent quick shaking of my body, which gradually + remitting, my sense as gradually returned, and then I + thought the bottles must be discharged, but could not + conceive how, till at last I perceived the chain in my + hand, and recollected what I had been about to do. That + part of my hand and fingers, which held the chain, was + left white, as though the blood had been driven out, + and remained so eight or ten minutes after, feeling + like dead flesh; and I had a numbness in my arms and + the back of my neck, which continued till the next + morning, but wore off. Nothing remains now of this + shock, but a soreness in my breast-bone, which feels as + if it had been bruised. I did not fall, but suppose I + should have been knocked down, if I had received the + stroke in my head. The whole was over in less than a + minute. + +On the second occasion, while making ready to give a healing shock to a +paralytic, he received a charge through his own head. He did not see the +flash, hear the report or feel the stroke. + + When my Senses returned [he told Jan Ingenhousz], I + found myself on the Floor. I got up, not knowing how + that had happened. I then again attempted to discharge + the Jars; but one of the Company told me they were + already discharg'd, which I could not at first + believe, but on Trial found it true. They told me they + had not felt it, but they saw I was knock'd down by it, + which had greatly surprised them. On recollecting + myself, and examining my Situation, I found the Case + clear. A small swelling rose on the Top of my Head, + which continued sore for some Days; but I do not + remember any other Effect good or bad. + +One of Franklin's contemporaries, Professor Richmann, of St. Petersburg, +did not fare so well; for a stroke of the lightning that he had allured +from the clouds brought his life to an end. Priestley, however, seems to +have regarded such a death as a form of euthanasia. At any rate, in +speaking of this martyr of science in his _History of Electricity_ he terms +him "the justly envied Richmann." + +After Franklin learned how to impound lightning, his intercourse with +electricity was more familiar than ever. + + In September, 1752 [he wrote to Collinson], I erected + an iron rod to draw the lightning down into my house, + in order to make some experiments on it, with two bells + to give notice when the rod should be electrify'd: a + contrivance obvious to every electrician. + + I found the bells rang sometimes when there was no + lightning or thunder, but only a dark cloud over the + rod; that sometimes, after a flash of lightning, they + would suddenly stop; and, at other times, when they had + not rang before, they would, after a flash, suddenly + begin to ring; that the electricity was sometimes very + faint, so that, when a small spark was obtain'd, + another could not be got for some time after; at other + times the sparks would follow extremely quick, and once + I had a continual stream from bell to bell, the size of + a crow quill: Even during the same gust there were + considerable variations. + + In the winter following I conceived an experiment, to + try whether the clouds were electrify'd _positively_ or + _negatively_. + +The result of these experiments, conducted with Franklin's usual +painstaking completeness, was the conclusion on his part that +thunder-clouds are, as a rule, in a negatively electrical state, and that, +therefore, generally speaking, they do not discharge electricity upon the +earth, but receive it from the earth. For the most part, he said, "_tis the +earth that strikes into the clouds, and not the clouds that strike into the +earth_." + +The thoroughness with which he addressed himself to the study of +electricity was very marked. His investigation was as searching and minute +as that of an anatomist engaged in the dissection of nervous tissue. Under +his hands, the bare Leyden Jar became a teeming storehouse of instruction +and amusement. He collected electricity from common objects by friction, he +brought it down from the sky, he sought its properties in amber, in the +tourmaline stone, in the body of the torpedo; he thought that he discerned +it in the radiance of the Aurora Borealis. He put it through all its +vagaries, juggled with it, teased it, cowed it until it confessed its +kinship with the tempestuous heavens. He tested its destructive effects +upon hens and turkeys, its therapeutic value to paralytic patients, its +efficacy as a corrective of tough meat. He even, it is said, charged the +railing under his windows with it to repel loafers standing about his front +door. And, in his relations to electricity, as to everything else, his +purposes were always those of practical utility. In one of his papers, he +admits that he cannot tell why points possess the power of drawing off the +electrical fire; + + nor is it of much importance to us [he adds] to know + the manner in which nature executes her laws. 'Tis + enough if we know the laws themselves. 'Tis of real use + to know that china left in the air unsupported will + fall and break; but _how_ it comes to fall, and _why_ + it breaks, are matters of speculation. 'Tis a pleasure + indeed to know them, but we can preserve our china + without it. + +He anticipated, or, in some instances, all but anticipated, several of the +more important discoveries of modern electrical science. He knew that, +when a number of Leyden jars are connected up under certain conditions, the +extent, to which each jar can be charged from a given source, varies +inversely as the number of jars. For a time, he was puzzled by the fact +that the light of a candle, or of a fire-coal, or of red-hot iron, would +destroy the repellency between his electrified ball and shot, but that the +light of the sun would not. But it was not long before he hit upon this +ingenious explanation: + + This different Effect probably did not arise from any + difference in the light, but rather from the particles + separated from the candle, being first attracted and + then repelled, carrying off the electric matter with + them; and from the rarefying the air, between the + glowing coal or red-hot iron, and the electrised shot, + through which rarefied air the electric fluid could + more readily pass. + +Referring to what Franklin had to say about the action of sunlight in this +connection, Arthur Schuster, in his _Some Remarkable Passages in the +Writings of Benjamin Franklin_, observes: "Had Franklin used a clean piece +of zinc instead of iron shot he might have anticipated Hertz's discovery of +the action of strong light on the discharge of gases." + +In the course of one of his experiments with an electrified can, Franklin +reached the conclusion that a cork, which he had lowered into the can, was +not attracted to its internal surface, as it would have been to its +external, because the mutual repulsion of the two inner opposite sides of +the can might prevent the accumulation of an electrical atmosphere upon +them. From the same experiment, the genius of Henry Cavendish deduced his +law that electrical repulsion varies inversely as the square of the +distance between the charges. + +Instead of declining, it can truly be said that the reputation of Franklin +as an electrical investigator and writer has increased with the progress +of electrical science. "We shall, I am sure," remarks Professor J. J. +Thomson in his _Electricity and Matter_, "be struck by the similarity +between some of the views which we are led to take by the results of the +most recent researches, with those enunciated by Franklin in the very +infancy of the subject." Nor should we omit a tribute of Dr. William +Garnett, in his _Heroes of Science_, in regard to the statements in +Franklin's first letters to Collinson. "They are," he says, "perfectly +consistent with the views held by Cavendish and by Clerk Maxwell, and, +though the phraseology is not that of modern text-books, the statements +themselves can hardly be improved upon to-day." + +If Franklin achieved a higher degree of success in the electrical than in +any other scientific field, it was partly, at any rate, because he never +again had the opportunity to give such continuous attention to scientific +pursuits. To him this was at times a source of very great disappointment. +In one of his letters to Beccaria, dated Sept. 21, 1768, he tells the +latter that, preoccupied as he was, he had constantly cherished the hope of +returning home, where he could find leisure to resume the philosophical +studies that he had shamefully put off from time to time. In a letter, some +eleven years later, from Paris, to the same correspondent, he said that he +was then prevented by similar distractions from pursuing those studies in +which he always found the highest satisfaction, and that he was grown so +old as hardly to hope for a return of the leisure and tranquillity, so +necessary for philosophical disquisitions. To Sir Joseph Banks he was +inspired some years later, by recent astronomical discoveries, made under +the patronage of the Royal Society, to write: "I begin to be almost sorry I +was born so soon, since I cannot have the happiness of knowing what will be +known 100 years hence," Indeed, to him, leisure, whether only the seclusion +of a thirty-day voyage across the Atlantic, or the final cessation of +public life, was but another term for recurrence to his scientific +predilections. When he received his leave from Congress to return home from +Paris, he wrote joyously to Ingenhousz: "I shall now be free of Politicks +for the Rest of my Life. Welcome again my dear Philosophical Amusements." +There was, to use his own expression, still too much flesh on his bones for +his countrymen to allow him any time except for political experiments; but, +for proof of the eager interest that he felt in science, and of the +prominent position, that he occupied in the scientific world of America, +until the last, we need go no further than the fact that, when he died, the +meetings of the American Philosophical Society had, for some time, been +held at his home in Philadelphia. + +How far Franklin might have added to his reputation as a man of science, if +he had not become engrossed by political duties and cares, is mere matter +of surmise. But there can be no doubt that he was eminently fitted in many +respects for scientific inquiry. The scientific temperament he possessed in +the very highest degree. He loved the truth too much to allow the workings +of human weakness in himself or others to deface its fair features. In +reporting to Collinson the electrical achievements, which crowned him with +such just renown, he almost invariably spoke of them as if they were the +joint achievements of a group of collaborators, of whom he was but one. The +generous alacrity, with which he credits to his friends Hopkinson, +Kinnersley, or Syng exclusively special discoveries or inventions, made by +them, shows conclusively enough how little this was true. There is no +reason to believe that his letters to Collinson on electricity would ever +have been published but for the unsolicited initiative of Dr. Fothergill +and Collinson; or that they would ever have been translated into French but +for the spontaneous persuasion that Buffon brought to bear upon D'Alibard. +In a letter to Collinson, after expressing distrust of an hypothesis, +advanced by him in former letters to the same correspondent, he declares +that he is ashamed to have expressed himself in so positive a manner. +Indeed, he said, he must request Collinson not to expose those letters, or, +if he communicated them to any of his friends, at least to conceal the name +of the author. His attitude towards his scientific triumphs was, when not +that of entire self-effacement, always that of unaffected humility. + + I am indebted for your preceding letter [he wrote in + his forty-seventh year to John Perkins] but business + sometimes obliges one to postpone philosophical + amusements. Whatever I have wrote of that kind, are + really, as they are entitled, but _Conjectures_ and + _Suppositions_; which ought always to give place, when + careful observation militates against them. I own I + have too strong a penchant to the building of + hypotheses; they indulge my natural indolence: I wish I + had more of your patience and accuracy in making + observations, on which, alone, true philosophy can be + founded. + +Equally candid and noble are other observations in a subsequent letter to +the same correspondent. Referring to certain objections, made by Perkins to +his theory of water spouts, he observed: + + Nothing certainly can be more improving to a Searcher + into Nature, than Objections judiciously made to his + Opinions, taken up perhaps too hastily: For such + Objections oblige him to re-study the Point, consider + every Circumstance carefully, compare Facts, make + Experiments, weigh Arguments, and be slow in drawing + Conclusions. And hence a sure Advantage results; for he + either confirms a Truth, before too lightly supported; + or discovers an Error, and receives Instruction from + the Objector. + + In this View I consider the Objections and Remarks you + sent me, and thank you for them sincerely. + +When he found that he was in error, it cost him no struggle to recant. For +a while he believed the sea to be the grand source of lightning, and built +up an imposing fabric of conclusions upon the belief; but he did not +hesitate afterwards to admit that he had embraced this opinion too hastily. +The same thing is true of the opinion that he held for a time, that the +progress of a ship westward, across the Atlantic, is retarded by the +diurnal motion of the earth. He supposed that the melting brought about by +the action of lightning was a cold fusion until holes burnt in a floor by +portions of a molten bell wire convinced him that this was not so. + + I was too easily led into that error [he said] by + accounts given even in philosophical books, and from + remote ages downwards, of melting money in purses, + swords in scabbards, etc. without burning the + inflammable matters that were so near those melted + metals. But men are, in general, such careless + observers, that a philosopher can not be too much on + his guard in crediting their relations of things + extraordinary, and should never build an hypothesis on + anything but clear facts and experiments, or it will be + in danger of soon falling, as this does, like a house + of cards. + +In one of his letters to Collinson, he declared that, even though future +discoveries should prove that certain conjectures of his were not wholly +right, yet they ought in the meantime to be of some use by stirring up the +curious to make more experiments and occasion more exact disquisitions. +Following out the same thought in another letter to Collinson he concluded: +"You are at liberty to communicate this paper to whom you please; it being +of more importance that knowledge should increase, than that your friend +should be thought an accurate philosopher." In a letter to John Lining, in +which he described the experiment from which Cavendish deduced the law of +which we have spoken, he observed: + + I find a frank acknowledgement of one's ignorance is + not only the easiest way to get rid of a dificulty, but + the likeliest way to obtain information, and therefore + I practise it: I think it an honest policy. Those who + affect to be thought to know everything, and so + undertake to explain everything often remain long + ignorant of many things that others could and would + instruct them in, if they appeared less conceited. + +The fact is that Franklin had such a keen sense of the dignity and +invincibility of truth that he could not be induced to enter into any +personal controversy about it. His feelings with regard to such +controversies are pointedly expressed in the _Autobiography_ in connection +with the attack made by the Abbé Nollet upon his electrical experiments. + + I once purpos'd [he said] answering the abbé, and + actually began the answer; but, on consideration that + my writings contain'd a description of experiments + which anyone might repeat and verify, and if not to be + verifi'd, could not be defended; or of observations + offer'd as conjectures, and not delivered dogmatically, + therefore not laying me under any obligation to defend + them; and reflecting that a dispute between two + persons, writing in different languages, might be + lengthened greatly by mistranslations, and thence + misconceptions of one another's meaning, much of one of + the abbé's letters being founded on an error in the + translation, I concluded to let my papers shift for + themselves, believing it was better to spend what time + I could spare from public business in making new + experiments, than in disputing about those already + made. + +But in this instance, too, after all, he acted upon the principle, stated +in one of his letters to Cadwallader Colden, that he who removes a +prejudice, or an error from our minds contributes to their beauty, as he +would do to that of our faces who should clear them of a wart or a wen. He +went through his experiments again, and satisfied himself that the Abbé had +not shaken his positions. At one time, when he was hesitating as to whether +he should reply to him, he heard that D'Alibard was preparing to do so. +"Perhaps," he wrote to his friend, James Bowdoin, "it may then appear +unnecessary for me to do anything farther in it. And will not one's vanity +be more gratified in seeing one's adversary confuted by a disciple, than +even by one's self?" When Wilson published a pamphlet, contending that +lightning rods should be blunt rather than pointed, he simply observed, "I +have not answered it, being averse to Disputes." + +Not only his temperament but his general mental attitude was instinctively +scientific. As we have seen, while Whitefield's other auditors were +standing mute and spellbound, he was carefully computing the distance that +the words of the orator would carry. As we have also seen, when his +soldiers were cutting down the giant pines at Gnadenhutten, he had his +watch out, deep in his observation of the time that it took them to fell a +tree. When his friend, Small, complained of deafness, he wrote to him that +he had found by an experiment at midnight that, by putting his thumb and +fingers behind his ear, and pressing it out and enlarging it as it were +with the hollow of his hand, he could hear the tick of a watch at the +distance of forty-five feet which was barely audible at a distance of +twenty feet without these aids. Even in his relations to the simplest +concerns of life, he had always the eye of a man of science to weight, +measure, dimension and distance. If anyone wishes to see how easily he +reduced everything to its scientific principles, let him read Franklin's +letter to Oliver Neave, who thought that it was too late in life for him to +learn to swim. With the confidence bred by a proper sense of the specific +gravity of the human body as compared with that of water, Franklin said, +there was no reason why a human being should not swim at the first trial. +If Neave would only wade out into a body of water, until it came up to his +breast and by a cast of his hand sink an egg to the bottom, between him and +the shore, where it would be visible, but could not be reached except by +diving, and then endeavor to recover it, he would be surprised to find what +a buoyant thing water was. + +Franklin also had all the inquisitiveness of a born philosopher. The winds, +the birds, the fish, the celestial phenomena brought to his attention on +his first voyage from England, the sluggish movement of his ship on his +voyage to England in 1757, the temperature and movement of the Gulf Stream, +the social and religious characteristics of the Moravians, Indian traits +and habits, the still flies in their bath of Madeira wine--all excited his +insatiable curiosity, and started him off on interesting trains of +observation or reflection. + +He was in the 78th year of his age, when, in the sight of fifty thousand +people, one of the balloons recently invented by the Montgolfiers, and +inflated with gas, produced by pouring oil of vitriol on iron filings, +ascended from the Champs de Mars, shining brightly in the sun during the +first stages of its ascent, then dwindling until it appeared scarcely +larger than an orange, and then melting away in the clouds that had never +before been invaded by such a visitant. But so fresh still was his interest +in every triumph of human ingenuity, that it required a long letter to Sir +Joseph Banks, the President of the Royal Society, supplemented by two +postscripts, to disburthen his mind of the sensations and thoughts excited +by the thrilling spectacle. Mingled in this letter with many precise +details of size, weight and distance are the speculations of the Parisians +with respect to the practical uses to which the toy might be put. Some +believed that, now that men might be supported in the air, nothing was +wanted but some light handy instruments to give and direct motion. Others +believed that a running footman, or a horse, slung and suspended under such +a globe, so as to diminish the weight of their feet on the ground to +perhaps eight or ten pounds, might, with a fair wind, run in a straight +line across country as fast as that wind, and over hedges, ditches and even +waters. Still other fantasies were that in time such globes might be kept +anchored in the air for the purpose of preserving game, or converting water +into ice; or might be turned to pecuniary profit as a means of giving +recreation-seekers a chance, at an altitude of a mile, to see far below +them a vast stretch of the terrestrial surface. Already, said Franklin, one +philosopher, M. Pilâtre de Rozier, had applied to the Academy for the +privilege of ascending in a larger Montgolfier in order to make certain +scientific experiments. The peasants at Gonesse, however, who had seen the +balloon, cut adrift on the Champs de Mars, fall to the earth, had regarded +it with very different feelings from the citizens of Paris. Frightened, and +conceiving from its bounding a little, when it touched the ground, that +there was some living animal in it, they had attacked it with stones and +knives, so that it was much mangled. + +With a subsequent letter to Dr. Price, Franklin enclosed a small balloon, +which his grandson had filled with inflammable air the night before, and +which, after mounting to the ceiling of Franklin's chamber, had remained +rolling about there for some time. "If a Man," this letter suggestively +asks, "should go up with one of the large ones, might there not be some +mechanical Contrivance to compress the Globe at pleasure; and thereby +incline it to descend, and let it expand when he inclines to rise again?" +The same eager curiosity about the balloon was manifested by Franklin in +many other later letters. Another great one, he informed Banks, had gone up +from Versailles. It was supposed to have been inflated with air, heated by +burning straw, and to have risen about two hundred toises; but did not +continue long at that height, and, after being wafted in a horizontal +direction by the wind, descended gently, as the air in it grew cooler. "So +vast a Bulk," said Franklin, "when it began to rise so majestically in the +Air, struck the Spectators with Surprise and Admiration. The Basket +contain'd a Sheep, a Duck & a Cock, who except the Cock receiv'd no hurt by +the fall." Another balloon of about five feet in diameter, the same letter +stated, had been sent up about one o'clock in the morning with a large +lanthorn under it by the Duke de Crillon at an entertainment, given by him, +during the preceding week, in the Bois de Boulogne in honor of the birth of +two Spanish princes. These were but a few of many recent ascensions. Most +interesting of all, however, a new balloon, designed by Messieurs Charles +and Robert, who were men of science and mechanical dexterity, was to carry +up a man. + +Another balloon, described by Franklin in one of his letters to Banks, was +open at the bottom, and was fed with heated air from a grate, fixed in the +middle of the opening, which was kept replenished with faggots and sheaves +of straw by men, posted in a wicker gallery, attached to the outside of the +lower part of the structure. By regulating the amount of fire in the grate, +the balloon could be given an upward or downward direction at pleasure. + +It was thought, Franklin said, that a balloon of this type, because of the +rapidity and small expense, with which it could be inflated, might be made +useful for military purposes. + +Still another balloon described by Franklin in the same letter was one +which was to be first filled with "permanently elastic inflammable air," +and then closed. It was twenty-six feet in diameter, and made of gores of +red and white silk, which presented a beautiful appearance. There was a +very handsome triumphal car, to be suspended from it, in which two +brothers, the Messrs. Robert, were to ascend with a table for convenience +in jotting down their thermometric and other observations. There was no +telling, Franklin declared, how far aeronautic improvements might be +pushed. A few months before, the idea of witches riding through the air on +a broomstick, and that of philosophers upon a bag of smoke would have +appeared equally impossible and ridiculous. The machines, however, he +believed, would always be subject to be driven by the winds, though perhaps +mechanic art might find easy means of giving them progressive motion in a +calm, and of slanting them a little in the wind. English philosophy was too +bashful, and should be more emulous in this field of competition. If, in +France, they did a foolish thing, they were the first to laugh at it +themselves, and were almost as much pleased with a _bon mot_ or a good +_chanson_, that ridiculed well the disappointment of the project, as they +might have been with its success. + +The experiment might be attended with important consequences that no one +could foresee. + + Beings of a frank and--nature far superior to ours [the + letter continued] have not disdained to amuse + themselves with making and launching balloons, + otherwise we should never have enjoyed the light of + those glorious objects that rule our day and night, nor + have had the pleasure of riding round the sun ourselves + upon the balloon we now inhabit. + +In due course, the Messrs. Robert, accompanied by M. Charles, a professor +of experimental philosophy, and an enthusiastic student of aeronautics, +made their perilous venture, which was likewise fully chronicled by +Franklin. The spectators, he said, were infinite, crowding about the +Tuileries, on the quays and bridges, in the fields and streets, and at the +windows, and on the roofs, of houses. The device of stimulating flagging +ascent by dropping sand bags from the car was one of the features of this +incident, and so was the device of protecting the envelope of the balloon +from rupture by covering it with a net, as well as that of lowering it by +letting a part of its contents escape through a valve controlled by a +cord. + + Between one and two o'clock [Franklin's narrative + states] all eyes were gratified with seeing it rise + majestically from among the trees, and ascend gradually + above the buildings, a most beautiful spectacle. When + it was about two hundred feet high, the brave + adventurers held out and waved a little white pennant, + on both sides their car, to salute the spectators who + returned loud claps of applause. + +When Franklin last saw the vanishing form of this balloon, it appeared no +bigger than a walnut. The experiment proved a most prosperous one. From +first to last the aerial navigators retained perfect command of their +air-ship, descending, when they pleased, by letting some of the air in it +escape, and rising, when they pleased, by discharging sand; and at one time +skimming over a field so low as to be able to talk to some laborers. +Pleased as Franklin was with the experiment, he wrote to Henry Laurens that +he yet feared that the machine would hardly become a common carriage in his +time, though, being the easiest of all _voitures_, it would be extremely +convenient to him, now that his malady forbade him the use of the old ones +over a pavement. The idea, however, was such an agreeable one to him that, +when he returned to Philadelphia, he wrote to his friend Jean Baptiste Le +Roy that he sometimes wished that he had brought a balloon from France with +him sufficiently large to raise him from the ground, and to permit him, +without discomfort from his stone, to be led around in his novel conveyance +by a string, attached to it, and held by an attendant on foot. + +On the whole, it appeared to Franklin that the invention of the balloon was +a thing of great importance. + + Convincing sovereigns of the Folly of Wars [he wrote to + Ingenhousz] may perhaps be one Effect of it; since it + will be impracticable for the most potent of them to + guard his Dominions. Five thousand Balloons, capable of + raising two Men each could not cost more than Five + Ships of the Line; and where is the Prince who can + afford so to cover his Country with Troops for its + Defence, as that Ten Thousand Men descending from the + Clouds might not in many places do an infinite deal of + mischief, before a Force could be brought together to + repel them? + +But nothing happened in Franklin's time, nor has happened since, to warrant +the belief that human flying-devices of any sort will ever be free enough +from danger to human life to be a really useful vehicle of transportation +in times of peace. So far their principal value has been during war, when +human safety has little to choose between the earth and the sky, but it is +fair to say that Franklin would have loathed war even more deeply than he +did, if he could have lived to see them in the form of aeroplane or +dirigible, making their way through the air like winged monsters of the +antediluvian past, and dropping devilish agencies of death and desolation +upon helpless innocence, and the fairest monuments of human industry and +art. Poor M. Pilâtre de Rozier, whom we have already mentioned, and who was +no less a person than the Professor of Chemistry, at the Athenée Royale, of +which he was the founder, fell with a companion, from an altitude of one +thousand toises to the rocky coast near Boulogne-sur-Mer, and was, as well +as his companion, dashed to pieces. Since his time the discharioted +Phaetons, who have fallen from the upper levels of the atmosphere, even +when not engaged in war, with the same fearful result, have been numerous +enough to constitute a ghastly necrology. Nor, it would appear, was the +peril under the conditions of aerial navigation in its earliest stages +limited to the aeronaut himself. In dissuading Ingenhousz from attempting a +balloon experiment, Franklin said that it was a serious thing to draw out +from their affairs all the inhabitants of a great city and its environs, +and that a disappointment made them angry. At Bordeaux lately, a person, +who pretended to send up a balloon, and had received money from many +people, not being able to make it rise, the populace were so exasperated +that they pulled down his house, and had like to have killed him. Anyone, +who has ever heard the execrations hurled at the head of a baseball umpire +in the United States, when one of his decisions has failed to command +general assent, will experience no difficulty, we are sure, in +understanding the force of the impulse that provoked this outbreak of +Gallic excitement. + +The enthusiasm, aroused in Franklin by the balloon, is not more noticeable +than his brooding desire to find some practical use for it. The visionary +speculation, which seeks to take the moon in its teeth, was no part of his +character. He grew no orchids in the air. To use his homely words in a +letter to Charles Thomson, he made no shoes for feet that he had never +measured. Every conclusion, every hypothesis had to be built upon a basis +of patient observation and gradual induction; every invention or discovery +had to have some useful application. + +At an earlier period than that of the discovery of the balloon, his +inquisitive spirit had led him to the study of marsh-gas and the pacifying +effect of oil upon troubled waters. In 1764, he had reason to believe that +a friend of his had succeeded in igniting the surface of a river in New +Jersey, after stirring up the mud beneath it, but his scientific friends in +England found it difficult to believe that he had not been imposed upon; +and the Royal Society withheld from publication among its Transactions a +paper on the experiment, written by Dr. Finley, the President of Princeton +College, and read before it. Franklin twice tried it in England without +success, and he prosecuted his investigation with such energy and +persistency that he finally contracted an intermittent fever by bending +over the stagnant water of a deep ditch, and inhaling its foul breath, or, +as would now be said, by being bitten by a mosquito hovering about it. + +In 1757, when on one of the ships, bound on Lord Loudon's fool's errand to +Louisburg, he observed that the water in the wake of two of them was +remarkably smooth, while that in the wake of the others was ruffled by the +wind, which was blowing freshly, and, when he spoke of the circumstance to +his captain, the latter answered somewhat contemptuously, as if to a person +ignorant of what everybody else knew, "The cooks have, I suppose, been just +emptying their greasy water through the scuppers, which has greased the +sides of those ships a little." The incident, and what he had read in Pliny +about the practice among the seamen of Pliny's time of calming rough seas +with oil, made him resolve to test the matter by experiment at the first +opportunity. This intention was afterwards strengthened, when he was again +at sea in 1762, by the "wonderful quietness" of oil, resting on the surface +of an agitated bed of water in the glass lamp swinging in his cabin, and by +the supposition of an old sea captain that the phenomenon was in keeping +with the practice, pursued by the Bermudians, of putting oil on water, when +they would strike fish. By the same captain, he was told that he had heard +that fishermen at Lisbon were in the habit of emptying a bottle or two of +oil on the sea, when the breakers on the bar at that port were running too +high for their boats to cross it in safety. From another person, he learnt +that, when divers in the Mediterranean needed more light for their +business, they spewed out from their mouths now and then a small quantity +of oil, which, rising to the surface, smoothed out its refracting waves. +This additional information supplied his curiosity with still further fuel. +It all ended in his dropping a little oil from a cruet on a large pond at +Clapham. The fluid spread with surprising swiftness over the surface, on +which it had fallen; but he found that he had made the mistake of dropping +it on the leeward, instead of the windward, side of the pond. When this +mistake was repaired, and a teaspoonful of oil was poured on its windward +side, where the waves were in an incipient state, and the oil could not be +driven back on the shore, an instant calmness diffused itself over a space +several yards square, which extended gradually until it reached the lee +side of the pond, making all that quarter of it, perhaps half an acre, as +smooth as a looking-glass. After this, he took with him, whenever he went +into the country, a little oil, in the upper hollow joint of his bamboo +cane for the purpose of repeating his experiment, whenever he had a chance +to do so, and, when he did repeat it, it was usually with success. + +Far from being so successful, however, was the experiment when, on a +blustering, unpleasant day, he attempted, with the co-operation of Sir +Joseph Banks and other friends, to still the surf on a shore at Portsmouth +with oil poured continually on the sea, at some distance away, through a +hole, somewhat bigger than a goose quill, in the cork of a large stone +bottle, though the effusion did flatten out a considerable tract of the sea +to such an extent that a wherry, making for Portsmouth, seemed to turn into +that tract of choice, and to use it from end to end as a piece of turnpike +road. All this is described by Franklin in a letter to William Brownrigg, +dated November 7, 1773, in which he cited some other illustrations of the +allaying effect of oil on waves besides those that we have mentioned, and +developed the philosophy of the subject with that incomparable clarity of +his, not unlike the action of oil itself in subduing refractions of light. + + Now I imagine [he says] that the wind, blowing over + water thus covered with a film of oil, can not easily + _catch_ upon it, so as to raise the first wrinkles, but + slides over it, and leaves it smooth as it finds it. It + moves a little the oil indeed, which being between it + and the water, serves it to slide with, and prevents + friction, as oil does between those parts of a machine + that would otherwise rub hard together. Hence the oil + dropped on the windward side of a pond proceeds + gradually to leeward, as may be seen by the smoothness + it carries with it, quite to the opposite side. For the + wind being thus prevented from raising the first + wrinkles, that I call the elements of waves, cannot + produce waves, which are to be made by continually + acting upon, and enlarging those elements, and thus the + whole pond is calmed. + +And the water in which the Bermudian struck his fish is not more limpid +than these observations suggested by the Portsmouth experiment: + + I conceive, that the operation of oil on water is, + first, to prevent the raising of new waves by the wind; + and, secondly, to prevent its pushing those before + raised with such force, and consequently their + continuance of the same repeated height, as they would + have done, if their surface were not oiled. But oil + will not prevent waves being raised by another power, + by a stone, for instance, falling into a still pool; + for they then rise by the mechanical impulse of the + stone, which the greasiness on the surrounding water + cannot lessen or prevent, as it can prevent the winds + catching the surface and raising it into waves. Now + waves once raised, whether by the wind or any other + power, have the same mechanical operation, by which + they continue to rise and fall, as a _pendulum_ will + continue to swing a long time after the force ceases to + act by which the motion was first produced; that motion + will, however, cease in time; but time is necessary. + Therefore, though oil spread on an agitated sea may + weaken the push of the wind on those waves whose + surfaces are covered by it, and so, by receiving less + fresh impulse, they may gradually subside; yet a + considerable time, or a distance through which they + will take time to move, may be necessary to make the + effect sensible on any shore in a diminution of the + surf; for we know, that, when wind ceases suddenly, the + waves it has raised do not as suddenly subside, but + settle gradually, and are not quite down till after the + wind has ceased. So, though we should, by oiling them, + take off the effect of wind on waves already raised, it + is not to be expected that those waves should be + instantly levelled. The motion they have received will, + for some time, continue; and, if the shore is not far + distant, they arrive there so soon, that their effect + upon it will not be visibly diminished. + +Nor was it on Clapham Pond and at Portsmouth alone that Franklin, when in +England, tested the tranquillizing properties of oil. He performed the same +experiment on Derwentwater and a small pond near the house of John Smeaton, +the celebrated engineer, at Austhorpe Lodge; and also on a large sheet of +water at the head of the Green Park. And the idea that there was something +almost supernatural about his quick insight and fertility of conception, of +which we find more than one trace in the utterances of his contemporaries, +is suggested in an interesting manner in the account left to us by the Abbé +Morellet of one of these experiments, which he witnessed when Colonel +Barre, Dr. Hawkesworth, David Garrick, Franklin and himself happened to be +guests of Lord Shelburne at Wycombe in 1772. + + It is true [the Abbé says] it was not upon the waves of + the sea but upon those of a little stream which flowed + through the park at Wycombe. A fresh breeze was + ruffling the water. Franklin ascended a couple of + hundred paces from the place where we stood, and + simulating the grimaces of a sorcerer, he shook three + times upon the stream a cane which he carried in his + hand. Directly the waves diminished and soon the + surface was smooth as a mirror. + +On one occasion, William Small wrote to him from Birmingham that Matthew +Boulton had "astonished the rural philosophers exceedingly by calming the +waves _à la Franklin_." + +Struck, when travelling on a canal in Holland, with the statement of a +boatman that their boat was going slow because the season had been a dry +one, and the water in the canal was not as deep as usual, Franklin, by +experiment with a trough and a little boat borrowed for the purpose, +established the fact that the friction caused by the displacement by a +moving boat of shallow water is measurably greater than that caused by the +displacement by such a boat of deeper water. Under like conditions in other +respects, the difference, he concluded, in a distance of four leagues, was +the difference between five and four hours. + +A conversation with Captain Folger, of Nantucket, produced far more +important consequences. Influenced by what the captain told him of the +knowledge that the Nantucket whalers had acquired of the retarding effect +of the Gulf Stream upon navigation, Franklin induced him to plat for him +the dimensions, course and swiftness of the stream, and to give him written +directions as to how ships, bound from the Newfoundland Banks to New York, +might avoid it, and at the same time keep clear of certain dangerous banks +and shoals. The immediate object of Franklin was to procure information for +the English Post Office that would enable the mail packets between England +and America to shorten their voyages. At his instance, Captain Folger's +drawing was engraved on the old chart of the Atlantic at Mount and Page's, +Tower Hill, and copies of it were distributed among the captains of the +Falmouth packets. Ever afterwards the Gulf Stream was a favorite field of +investigation to him, when at sea, and its phenomena were mastered by him +with remarkable thoroughness. It was generated, he conjectured, by the +great accumulation of water on the eastern coast of America created by the +trade winds which constantly blew there. He found that it was always warmer +than the sea on each side of it, and that it did not sparkle at night; and +he assigned to its influence the tornadoes, waterspouts and fogs by which +its flow was attended. + +Franklin also possessed to a striking degree the inventive capacity which +is such a valuable qualification for experimental philosophy. We have +already seen how ready his mechanical skill was in supplying printing +deficiencies. Speaking of the pulse glasses, made by Nairne, in which water +could be brought to the boiling point with the heat of the hand, he tells +us: + + I plac'd one of his glasses, with the elevated end + against this hole (a hole that he had opened through + the wainscot in the seat of his window for the access + of outside air); and the bubbles from the other end, + which was in a warmer situation, were continually + passing day and night, to the no small surprize of even + philosophical spectators. + +As he sat in his library at Philadelphia, in his last years, he was +surrounded by various objects conceived by his own ingenuity. The seat of +his chair became a step-ladder, when reversed, and to its arm was fastened +a fan that he could work with a slight motion of his foot. Against his +bookcase rested "the long arm" with which he lifted down the books on its +upper shelves. The hours, minutes and seconds were told for him by a clock, +of his own invention, with only three wheels and two pinions, in which even +James Ferguson, mathematician as he was, had to confess that he experienced +difficulty in making improvements. The very bifocal glasses, now in such +general use, that he wore were a triumph of his own quick wit. Describing +this invention of his in a letter to George Whatley, he said: + + I therefore had formerly two Pair of Spectacles, which + I shifted occasionally, as in travelling I sometimes + read, and often wanted to regard the Prospects. Finding + this Change troublesome, and not always sufficiently + ready, I had the Glasses cut, and half of each kind + associated in the same Circle.... By this means, as I + wear my Spectacles constantly, I have only to move my + Eyes up or down, as I want to see distinctly far or + near, the proper Glasses being always ready. This I + find more particularly convenient since my being in + France, the Glasses that serve me best at Table to see + what I eat, not being the best to see the Faces of + those on the other Side of the Table who speak to me; + and when one's Ears are not well accustomed to the + Sounds of a Language, a Sight of the Movements in the + Features of him that speaks helps to explain; so that I + understand French better by the help of my Spectacles. + +The shrinking that a mahogany box, given to him in England, underwent, when +subjected to the atmospheric conditions of America, suggested a hygrometer +to him which Nairne afterwards constructed in accordance with his +plans.[55] + +His mind seems to have had no torpid moments, except, perhaps, when some +Congressional orator was speaking. When, in early life, he had nothing else +better to do, he would address himself to making magic squares and circles +as intricate as Rosamond's walk. "He took it into his head," James Logan +wrote to Collinson, "to think of _magical squares_, in which he outdid +Frenicle himself, who published above eighty pages in folio on that subject +alone." Not willing to be outdone even by Stifelius, Franklin drew a square +of such extraordinary numerical properties that not only did the numbers on +all the rows and diagonals on its face total 2056, but the sum of the +numbers on every group of 16 smaller squares on its face, when revealed +through a hole in a piece of paper, moved backwards and forwards over its +face, equalled precisely 2056 too. He likewise drew a + + magick circle, consisting of 8 concentric circles, and + 8 radial rows, filled with a series of numbers, from 12 + to 75, inclusive, so disposed as that the numbers of + each circle or each radial row, being added to the + central number 12, they made exactly 360, the number of + degrees in a circle; and this circle had, moreover, all + the properties of the square of 8. + +Both of these conceits were duly forwarded to Collinson and, with regard to +the square of 16, Franklin wrote to him playfully that he made no question +but that he would readily allow that it was the most magically magical of +any magic square ever made by any magician. From the terms of this letter, +it is plain that the practical intellect of Franklin was a little ashamed +of these feats as but _difficiles nugæ_, but his misgivings were somewhat +soothed by the suggestion of Logan that they might not be altogether +useless if they produced by practice an habitual readiness and exactness in +mathematical disquisitions. + +Hardly more profitable than the magic squares but indicative, too, of the +same mental initiative, was the scheme formed by Franklin for a new +alphabet and a reformed mode of spelling. In the new alphabet, the first +effort was to arrange the letters in what was supposed to be a more natural +order than that of the old alphabet by beginning with the simple sounds +framed by the breath with no or very little help from the tongue, teeth +and lips, and proceeding gradually forward from sounds, produced at the +back of the mouth, to the sound produced by closing the lips, that is _m_. +The _c_ of the old alphabet was omitted, _k_ being left to supply its hard +sound, and _s_ its soft, and _k_ being also left to supply the place of +_q_, and with an _s_ added, the place of _x_. _W_ as well as _q_ and _x_ +was also dismissed from service, the vowel _u_, sounded as _oo_, being +relied upon to perform its function. _Y_ also went by the board, _i_ taking +its place, where used singly, and two vowels, where used as a diphthong. +_J_ was superseded by an entirely new symbol, shaped something like a small +_h_, and sounded as _ish_, when used singly, but subserving various other +offices, when conjoined with _d_, _t_ and _z_. As a whole, the new alphabet +was so systematized that the sound of any letter, vowel or consonant was +always the same, wherever it occurred, or whatever its alphabetical +collocation. Nor did the new alphabet contain any silent letters, or fail +to provide a letter for every distinct sound in the language. The +difference between short and long vowels was compassed by a single vowel +where short, and a double one, where long. For illustration, "mend" +remained "mend" and "did," "did," but "remained" reappeared as "remeened," +and "deed" as "diid." Typographical obstacles prevent us from bringing to +the eye of the reader a specimen of the reformed alphabet and spelling as +they looked on a printed page. They, of course, issued from the mind of +Franklin as stillborn as his reformed Episcopal Prayer Book. His only +proselytes appear to have been Polly, who even wrote a letter to him in the +strange forms, and his loving sister, Jane, who was delighted to have +another language with which to express her affection for him. Our world is +one in which some things are made but others make themselves, and, however +arbitrary their character, will not allow themselves to be made over, even +at the behest of such merciless rationalism as that of Franklin. + +In the latter part of Franklin's life, Noah Webster, the lexicographer, +also formed a scheme for the reform of the alphabet, and Franklin had the +pleasure of writing to him, "Our Ideas are so nearly similar, that I make +no doubt of our easily agreeing on the Plan." Several years later, Webster, +in his _Dissertations on the English Language_, stated that Franklin had +compiled a dictionary, based upon his own reformatory system, and procured +the types for printing it, but, finding himself too old to prosecute his +design, had offered both manuscript and types to him. "Whether this +project, so deeply interesting to this country," Webster said, "will ever +be effected; or whether it will be defeated by insolence and prejudice, +remains for my countrymen to determine." + +Another thing upon which the ingenuity of Franklin was brought to bear, as +the reader has already been told, was the Armonica. In his letter to +Beccaria, extolling its merits, he describes it with a wealth of detail, +not only thoroughly in keeping with his knack for mechanics, but showing +that to music as to everything else, that won the favor of his intellect, +he brought the ken of a man of science. The letter concludes with a dulcet +compliment, which harmonizes well with its subject: "In honour of your +musical language (the Italian), I have borrowed from it the name of this +instrument, calling it the Armonica." In one of his papers, he drew up +instructions for the proper use of the instrument which nothing but the +most intimate familiarity with its operation could have rendered possible. + +Admiration has often been expended upon the acuteness with which Franklin, +in a letter to Lord Kames, accounted for the pleasure afforded by the old +Scotch tunes, as compared with the pleasure afforded by the difficult music +of his day, which, he said, was of the same nature as that awakened by the +feats of tumblers and rope-dancers. The reason was this. The old Scotch +melodies were composed by the minstrels of former days, to be played on the +harp, accompanied by the voice. The harp was strung with wire (which gives +a sound of long continuance) and had no contrivance like that in the modern +harpsichord, by which the sound of the preceding note could be stopped, the +moment a succeeding note began. To avoid _actual_ discord, it was therefore +necessary that the succeeding emphatic note should be a chord with the +preceding, as their sounds must exist at the same time. Hence arose that +beauty in those tones that had so long pleased, and would please forever, +though men scarce knew why. + +The most useful invention of Franklin was what came to be known as the +Franklin stove. With modifications, it is still in use, and the essay +written on it by Franklin, entitled _An Account of the New-invented +Pennsylvanian Fireplaces_, is one of the best illustrations of the capacity +of his scientific genius to adapt itself to the hardest and barest offices +that human comfort and convenience could impose upon it with a nicety and +accuracy of trained insight and touch worthy of the cleverest journeyman, a +command of scientific principles to be expected only of a professional +student, and a gift of clear, lively expression which reminds us of the +remark of Stella that Dean Swift could write agreeably even about a +broomstick. The principle upon which the Franklin stove was constructed was +that of making the heat from its open fireplace, after first ascending to +its top, descend in such a manner at its back, before passing off into the +chimney, as to diffuse by radiation through the room, in which it stood, a +large part of its warmth. The essay enumerates the different methods of +heating rooms then in use: the great, open, smoky chimney-place, that the +unremitting labor of one man could scarce keep supplied with fuel, and that +gave out little more heat for human warmth than a fire outdoors; this +chimney-place reduced to a smaller size with jambs, and free, to a great +extent from the reproach of smokiness, yet, with its contraction setting up +strong currents of whistling and howling air, which reminded Franklin of +the Spanish proverb, + + "If the Wind blows on you thro' a Hole, + Make your Will, and take Care of your Soul"; + +the expensive and intricate French fireplaces with hollow backs, hearths +and jambs of iron; the Holland stove, which shut off the sight of the fire, +and could not conveniently be used for any purposes except those of warmth; +the German stove which was subject to very much the same disadvantages as +the Holland stove; and charcoal fires in pots which emitted disagreeable +and dangerous fumes and were used chiefly in the shops of handicraftsmen. +From the shortcomings of all these methods of heating rooms, the Franklin +stove, its inventor contended, was exempt. It diffused heat equally +throughout a whole room; if you sat in an apartment warmed by it, you were +not scorched before, while you were frozen behind; nor were you exposed to +the drafts from which so many women, particularly, got colds in the head, +rheums and defluxions that fell upon their jaws and gums, and destroyed +early many a fine set of teeth in the northern colonies, and from which so +many persons of both sexes contracted coughs, catarrhs, toothaches, fevers, +pleurisies and other diseases. It kept a sick room supplied with a fresh +and yet properly tempered flow of pure air. It conserved heat. It +economized fuel. With it, Franklin said, he could make his room twice as +warm as it used to be with a quarter of the wood that he used to consume. +If you burned candles near it, they did not flare and run off into tallow +as in the case of ordinary fireplaces with their excessive drafts. It +corrected most smoky chimneys. It prevented all kinds of chimneys from +fouling, and if they fouled made them less likely to fire, and, if they +fired, made the fire easier to repress. A flame could be speedily kindled +in it with the help of the shutter or trap-bellows that went along with +it. A fire could be readily extinguished in it, or could be so secured in +it that not one spark could fly out of it to do any damage. A room once +warmed remained warm all night. "With all these Conveniences," concludes +Franklin, "you do not lose the pleasing Sight nor Use of the Fire, as in +the Dutch Stoves, but may boil the Tea-Kettle, warm the Flat-Irons, heat +Heaters, keep warm a Dish of Victuals by setting it on the Top, &c. &c." + +Some years after the publication of this essay, Franklin devised an +improvement in the open chimney-place which tended to abate drafts and +check the escape of heat up the chimney by contracting the chimney opening, +bringing its breast down to within three feet of the hearth, and placing an +iron frame just under this breast, with grooves on each side of the frame, +in which an iron plate could be slid backwards and forwards at pleasure, +for the purpose of cutting off the mouth of the chimney entirely from the +chimney itself, when there was no fire on the hearth, or of leaving a space +of not more than two inches for the escape of smoke between the further +edge of the plate and the back of the chimney-mouth. This improved +chimney-place was described by Franklin in letters to Alexander Dick and +James Bowdoin. The letter to Bowdoin seems to leave little to be said on +the subject of chimneys. It indicates that Franklin had subjected them to a +scrutiny hardly less close than that which he had fixed upon the Leyden +Jar. In connection with the currents and reverse currents, set up in them +in summer by the relations of inequality, which the air in them sustains, +at different hours of the day and night, to the outside temperature, he +suggests that joints of meat might keep for a week or more during the +hottest weather in chimney-openings, if well wrapt three or four fold in +wet linen cloths, sprinkled once a day with water to prevent evaporation. +Butter and milk in vessels and bottles covered with wet cloths might, he +thought, be preserved in the same way. And he even thought, too, that the +movements of air in chimneys might, with the aid of smoke-jack vanes, be +applied to some mechanical purposes, where a small but pretty constant +power only was needed. To appreciate how patiently and exhaustively +Franklin was in the habit of pursuing every course of observation or +reflection opened up by his scientific propensities, the whole of this +letter, which had much more to say on the subject of chimneys than we have +mentioned, should be read. + +At a later period of his life, Franklin describes to Turgot what he called +his new stove. The novel feature of this consisted of an aerial syphon by +which the smoke from the fireplace of the stove was first drawn upwards +through the longer leg of the syphon, and then downwards through its +shorter leg, and over burning coals, by which it was kindled into flame and +consumed. + +The ingenuity of Franklin was also exerted very successfully in the +rectification of smoky chimneys. In his essay on the causes and cure of +such chimneys, written on his last ocean voyage, he resolved the causes +into no less than nine heads, and stated with his accustomed perspicuity +and precision the remedy for each cause. In his time, the art of properly +carrying off smoke through chimneys was but imperfectly understood by +ordinary builders and mechanics, and it was of too humble a nature to tempt +discussion by such men of science as were capable of clearly expounding the +physical principles upon which it rested. It was not strange, therefore, +that Franklin, who deemed nothing, that was useful, to be beneath the +dignity of philosophy, should have acquired in his time the reputation of +being a kind of "universal smoke doctor" and should have been occasionally +consulted by friends of his, such as Lord Kames, about refractory chimneys. +The only smoky chimney, that seems to have completely baffled his +investigation, recalls in a way the philosopher, who thought that he had +discovered a new planet, but afterwards found that what he saw was only a +fly in the end of his telescope. After exhausting every scientific resource +in an effort to ascertain why the chimney in the country-house of one of +his English friends smoked, Franklin was obliged to own the impotence for +once of his skill; but, subsequently, his friend, who made no pretensions +to the character of a fumist, climbed to the top of the funnel of his +chimney by a ladder, and, on peering down into it, found that it had been +filled by nesting birds with twigs and straw, cemented with clay, and lined +with feathers. + +Nor was the attention given by Franklin to ventilation by any means +confined to chimneys. Air vitiated by human respiration also came in for a +share of it. Describing an experiment by which he demonstrated the manner +in which air affected in this way is purified, Alexander Small said: + + The Doctor confirmed this by the following experiment. + He breathed gently through a tube into a deep glass + mug, so as to impregnate all the air in the mug with + this quality. He then put a lighted bougie into the + mug; and upon touching the air therein the flame was + instantly extinguished; by frequently repeating the + operation, the bougie gradually preserved its light + longer in the mug, so as in a short time to retain it + to the bottom of it; the air having totally lost the + bad quality it had contracted from the breath blown + into it. + +Franklin became deeply interested in the brilliant course of investigation +pursued by Priestley with respect to gases, and several penetrating glances +of his into the relations of carbonic acid gas to vegetation have come down +to us. Observing on a visit to Priestley the luxuriance of some mint +growing in noxious air, he suggested to Priestley that "the air is mended +by taking something from it, and not by adding to it." He hoped, he said in +a letter to Priestley, that the nutriment derived by vegetation from +carbonic acid gas would give some check to the rage of destroying trees +that grew near houses, which had accompanied recent improvements in +gardening from an opinion of their being unwholesome. + +Just as he was consulted about the best methods of protecting St. Paul's +Cathedral and the arsenals at Purfleet from lightning, so he was also +consulted by the British Government as to the best method for ventilating +the House of Commons. "The personal atmosphere surrounding the members," he +thought, "might be carried off by making outlets in perpendicular parts of +the seats, through which the air might be drawn off by ventilators, so +placed, as to accomplish this without admitting any by the same channels." +The experiment might be tried upon some of our City Councilmen. Principles +of ventilation, expounded by Franklin, were also utilized by the Messrs. +Adam of the Adelphi, in the construction of the large room built by them +for the meetings of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts. We also find +him suggesting openings, close to the ceilings of rooms, and communicating +with flues, constructed alongside of chimney flues, as effective means for +ventilating rooms. + +With all his primary and secondary gifts for scientific research, it is +difficult to believe that, if Franklin had not been diverted from it by +engrossing political cares, he would have added both to his special +reputation as a student of electricity and to his general reputation as a +man of science. As it was, his civic activity and popular leadership in +Pennsylvania, his several agencies abroad, his participation in the +American Revolution, his career as Minister to France, and his official +duties, after his return, made such imperious demands upon his time that he +had little or no leisure left for scientific pursuits. This picture of his +situation which he presented in a letter to Ingenhousz, when he was in +France, was more or less true of almost every part of his life after he +became famous: + + Besides being harass'd with too much Business, I am + expos'd to numberless Visits, some of Kindness and + Civility, many of mere idle Curiosity, from Strangers + of America & of different Parts of Europe, as well as + the Inhabitants of the Provinces who come to Paris. + These devour my Hours, and break my Attention, and at + Night I often find myself fatigu'd without having done + anything. Celebrity may for a while flatter one's + Vanity, but its Effects are troublesome. I have begun + to write two or three Things, which I wish to finish + before I die; but I sometimes doubt the possibility. + +Some of the reflections of Franklin on scientific subjects, such as his +early letters to Cadwallader Colden with regard to "perspirants and +absorbents" are, to use his own expression in one of them, too plainly +_ultra crepidam_ to have any value. Of others, we might fairly say that his +knowledge of the topics which he handled in them was hardly deep enough to +deserve any praise more confident than that which he allowed himself when +writing to Cadwallader Colden in 1751 of the Philadelphia Experiments. +"So," he said to Colden in this letter, "we are got beyond the skill of +_Rabelais's_ devils of two years old, who, he humorously says, had only +learnt to thunder and lighten a little round the head of a cabbage." All +the same, even aside from his electrical experiments, Franklin acquired no +little fame as a philosopher, made more than one fruitful suggestion to +fellow-workers of his in the domain of science and contributed many useful +observations to the general fund of scientific thought. + +Apparently his views on medical topics were held in very considerable +respect. In 1777, he was elected a member of the Royal Medical Society of +Paris, and in 1787 an honorary member of the Medical Society of London. +Many works on medical subjects were dedicated to him by their authors. He +was one of the commission which exposed the imposture of Mesmer. There are +few things that give us a better idea of the extraordinary celebrity +enjoyed by him than the wide currency obtained by a spurious opinion of +his, ascribing great merit to tobacco ashes as a remedy for dropsy. It won +such an extensive circulation, and brought down on his head such a flood of +questions from physicians and others, that he was compelled to deny flatly +the truth of the story. One person, Lord Cadross, afterwards the Earl of +Buchan, firmly believed that he would have perished at the hands of a +professional physician, who wished to blister him, when he was afflicted +with a fever, if Franklin had not dissented from the treatment. Franklin +probably deserved no higher credit for his dissent on this occasion than +that of sharing the opinion of Sir John Pringle, who was convinced that, +out of every one hundred fevers, ninety-two cured themselves. So far as we +can see, there is nothing in the works of Franklin to warrant the belief +that he possessed any uncommon degree of medical knowledge, though he was +full of curiosity with regard to medicine as with regard to every other +branch of human learning. In one of his letters to Colden, written in his +fortieth year, he expressed the hope that future experiment would confirm +the idea that the yaws could be cured by tar-water. In a later letter to +Colden, he expressed his pleasure at hearing more instances of the success +of the poke-weed "in the Cure of that horrible Evil to the human Body, a +Cancer." At his suggestion, a young physician, with the aid of Sanctorius' +balance, tested alternately each hour, for eight hours, the amount of the +perspiration from his body, when naked, and when warmly clad, and found +that it was almost as great during the hours when he was naked. By his +investigations into the malady known in his time popularly as "the dry +bellyache," and learnedly as the "_colica Pictonum_," he conferred a real +benefit upon medical science. His views upon the subject received the honor +of being incorporated with due acknowledgments into Dr. John Hunter's essay +on the _Dry Bellyache of the Tropics_. Summarily speaking they were that +the complaint was a form of lead poisoning. + + I have long been of opinion [he wrote to Dr. + Cadwallader Evans in 1768] that that distemper proceeds + always from a metallic cause only; observing that it + affects, among tradesmen, those that use lead, however + different their trades,--as glaziers, letter-founders, + plumbers, potters, white-lead makers, and painters;... + although the worms of stills ought to be of pure tin, + they are often made of pewter, which has a great + mixture in it of lead. + +The year before this letter was written, Franklin had found on reading a +pamphlet, containing the names and vocations of the persons, who had been +cured of the colic at Charité, a Parisian hospital, that all of them had +followed trades, which handle lead in some form or other. On going over the +vocations, he was at first puzzled to understand why there should be any +stonecutters or soldiers among the sufferers, but his perplexity was +cleared up by a physician at the hospital, who informed him that +stonecutters frequently used melted lead for fixing the ends of iron +balustrades in stone, and that the soldiers had been employed as laborers +by painters, when grinding colors. These facts were long afterwards +communicated by Franklin to Benjamin Vaughan in a letter, in which he cited +other incidents, interesting partly because they corroborated his theory, +and partly because they are additional proofs of his vigilance and patience +in collecting facts, before advancing an hypothesis, as well as of a +memory, which retained every instructive circumstance imparted to it by eye +or ear as imperishably as hardening cement retains the impression of a +dog's foot. When he was a boy at Boston, Franklin said, it was discovered +that New England rum, which had produced the dry bellyache and paralyzed +the limbs in North Carolina, had been made by distilleries with leaden +still-heads and worms. Later, when he was in London, he had been warned by +an old workman at Palmer's printing-house, as well as by an obscure pain in +his own hands, that it was a dangerous practice to handle a heated case of +types. About the same time, a letter-founder in the same close at Palmer's, +in a conversation with him, ascribed the existence of the ailment among his +workmen to the fact that some of them were slovenly enough to go to their +meals with unwashed hands that had come into contact with molten lead. He +had also observed in Derbyshire that the smoke from lead furnaces was +pernicious to grass and other vegetables, and in America had often observed +that streaks on shingle roofs, made by white lead, washed from balusters or +dormer window frames, were always entirely free from moss. He had also been +told of a case where this colic had afflicted a whole family, and was +supposed to be due to the corrosive effect of the acid in leaves, shed upon +the roof, from which the family derived the supply of rain water, upon +which it relied for drink. + +More important still than the insight that Franklin obtained into the +Painter's Colic was the insight which he obtained into the salutary effect +of the custom which is now almost universal, except in the homes of the +ignorant and squalid, of sleeping at night in rooms with the windows up. +This custom, as well as the outdoor regimen, which has proved of such +signal value in the treatment of tuberculosis, originated in hygienic +conceptions identical with those steadfastly inculcated by him. His +opinions with regard to colds and the benefits of pure air were expressed +at many different times, and in many different forms, but nowhere so +conveniently for the purposes of quotation as in a letter which he wrote to +Dr. Benjamin Rush in 1773. + + I hope [he said in this letter] that after having + discovered the benefit of fresh and cool air applied to + the sick, people will begin to suspect that possibly it + may do no harm to the well. I have not seen Dr. + Cullen's book, but am glad to hear that he speaks of + catarrhs or colds by contagion. I have long been + satisfied from observation, that besides the general + colds now termed _influenzas_ (which may possibly + spread by contagion, as well as by a particular quality + of the air), people often catch cold from one another + when shut up together in close rooms, coaches, &c., and + when sitting near and conversing so as to breathe in + each other's transpiration; the disorder being in a + certain state. I think, too, that it is the frouzy, + corrupt air from animal substances, and the perspired + matter from our bodies, which being long confined in + beds not lately used, and clothes not lately worn, and + books long shut up in close rooms, obtains that kind of + putridity, which occasions the colds observed upon + sleeping in, wearing, and turning over such bedclothes, + or books, and not their coldness or dampness. From + these causes, but more from too full living, with too + little exercise, proceed in my opinion most of the + disorders, which for about one hundred and fifty years + past the English have called _colds_. + + As to Dr. Cullen's cold or catarrh _a frigore_, I + question whether such an one ever existed. Travelling + in our severe winters, I have suffered cold sometimes + to an extremity only short of freezing, but this did + not make me _catch cold_. And, for moisture, I have + been in the river every evening two or three hours for + a fortnight together, when one could suppose I might + imbibe enough of it to _take cold_ if humidity could + give it; but no such effect ever followed. Boys never + get cold by swimming. Nor are people at sea, or who + live at Bermudas, or St. Helena, small islands, where + the air must be ever moist from the dashing and + breaking of waves against their rocks on all sides, + more subject to colds than those who inhabit part of a + continent where the air is driest. Dampness may indeed + assist in producing putridity and those miasmata which + infect us with the disorder we call a cold; but of + itself can never by a little addition of moisture hurt + a body filled with watery fluids from head to foot. + +Franklin's belief that colds and overeating often went hand in hand also +found expression in one of his letters to Polly Stevenson. When sending +her an account of some seamen, who had experienced considerable relief from +thirst by wearing clothes kept constantly wet with salt water, he said, "I +need not point out to you an Observation in favour of our Doctrine, that +you will make on reading this Paper, that, _having little to eat_, these +poor People in wet Clothes Day and Night _caught no cold_." In every, or in +practically every, case, he seems to have referred colds to what he rather +vaguely calls a siziness and thickness of the blood, resulting from checked +perspiration, produced by different agencies, including a gross diet. + + Thus [he says in his _Notes and Hints for Writing a + Paper Concerning what is called Catching Cold_], People + in Rooms heated by a Multitude of People, find their + own Bodies heated; thence the quantity of perspirable + Matter is increased that should be discharged, but the + Air, not being changed, grows so full of the same + Matter, that it will receive no more. So the Body must + retain it. The Consequence is, the next Day, perhaps + sooner, a slight putrid Fever comes on, with all the + Marks of what we call a Cold, and the Disorder is + suppos'd to be got by coming out of a warm Room, + whereas it was really taken while in that Room. + +He did not shrink from any of the consequences of his reasoning about colds +however extreme. + + Be so kind as to tell me at your leisure [he wrote to + Barbeu Dubourg], whether in France, you have a general + Belief that moist Air, and cold Air, and damp Shirts or + Sheets, and wet Floors, and Beds that have not lately + been used, and Clothes that have not been lately worn, + and going out of a warm Room into the Air, and leaving + off a long-worn Wastecoat, and wearing leaky Shoes, and + sitting near an Open Window, or Door, or in a Coach + with both Glasses down, are all or any of them capable + of giving the Distemper we call _a Cold_, and you _a + Rheum, or Catarrh_? Or are these merely _English_ + ideas? + +His views on the wholesomeness of fresh air were far in advance of the +general intelligence of his time, and were expressed in spirited terms. +After stating in a letter to Jean Baptiste Le Roy that he had become +convinced that the idea that perspiration is checked by cold was an error +as well as the idea that rheum is occasioned by cold, he added: + + But as this is Heresy here, and perhaps may be so with + you, I only whisper it, and expect you will keep my + Secret. Our Physicians have begun to discover that + fresh Air is good for People in the Small-pox & other + Fevers. I hope in time they will find out that it does + no harm to People in Health. + +At times his language on what he called _aerophobia_ grew highly animated. + + What Caution against Air [he said in a letter to Thomas + Percival], what stopping of Crevices, what wrapping up + in warm Clothes, what shutting of Doors and Windows! + even in the midst of Summer! Many London Families go + out once a day to take the Air; three or four Persons + in a Coach, one perhaps Sick; these go three or four + Miles, or as many Turns in Hide Park, with the Glasses + both up close, all breathing over & over again the same + Air they brought out of Town with them in the Coach + with the least change possible, and render'd worse and + worse every moment. And this they call _taking the + Air_. + +Indeed, there is at times something just a little ludicrous in the +uncompromising fervor with which Franklin insisted upon his proposition. It +seemed strange he said, in the letter from which we have just quoted, that +a man whose body was composed in great part of moist fluids, whose blood +and juices were so watery, and who could swallow quantities of water and +small beer daily without inconvenience, should fancy that a little more or +less moisture in the air should be of such importance; but we abound in +absurdity and inconsistency. + +It is a delightful account that John Adams gives us of a night which he +spent in the same bed with Franklin at New Brunswick, on their way to the +conference with Lord Howe: + + The chamber [Adams tells us] was little larger than the + bed, without a chimney, and with only one small window. + The window was open, and I, who was an invalid, and + afraid of the air in the night, shut it close. "Oh!" + says Franklin, "don't shut the window, we shall be + suffocated." I answered I was afraid of the evening + air. Dr. Franklin replied, "The air within this chamber + will soon be, and indeed is now, worse than that + without doors. Come, open the window and come to bed, + and I will convince you. I believe you are not + acquainted with my theory of colds." Opening the window + and leaping into bed, I said I had read his letters to + Dr. Cooper, in which he had advanced that nobody ever + got cold by going into a cold church or any other cold + air, but the theory was so little consistent with my + experience, that I thought it a paradox. However, I had + so much curiosity to hear his reasons, that I would run + the risk of a cold. The Doctor then began a harangue + upon air and cold, and respiration and perspiration, + with which I was so much amused that I soon fell + asleep, and left him and his philosophy together; but I + believe they were equally sound and insensible within a + few minutes after me, for the last words I heard were + pronounced as if he was more than half asleep. I + remember little of the lecture, except that the human + body, by respiration and perspiration, destroys a + gallon of air in a minute; that two such persons as we + were now in that chamber would consume all the air in + it in an hour or two; that by breathing over again the + matter thrown off by the lungs and the skin, we should + imbibe the real cause of colds, not from abroad, but + from within. + +At times Franklin merely gave hints to brother philosophers and left them +to run the hints down. For instance, he suggested to M. De Saussure, of +Geneva, who succeeded in ascending Mont Blanc, the idea of ascertaining +the lateral attraction of the Jura Mountains for the purpose of discovering +the mean density of the earth upon the Newtonian theory of gravitation. +This was subsequently done with complete success by Nevil Maskelyne on Mt. +Schehallion in Perthshire. To Ingenhousz he suggested the idea of "hanging +a weight on a spiral spring, to discover if bodies gravitated differently +to the earth during the conjunctions of the sun and moon, compared with +other times." + +He gave very close study to the philosophy of waterspouts and whirlwinds +and came to the conclusion that they were generated by the same causes, and +were of the same nature, "the only Difference between them being, that the +one passes over Land, the other over Water." He was the first person to +discover that northeast storms did not begin in the northeast at all. The +manner in which he did it is another good illustration of his quickness in +noting the significance of every fact by which his attention was +challenged. He desired to observe a lunar eclipse at nine o'clock in the +evening at Philadelphia, but his efforts were frustrated by a northeast +storm, which lasted for a night and a day, and did much damage all along +the Atlantic coast. To his surprise he afterwards learnt from the Boston +newspapers that the eclipse had been visible there, and, upon writing to +his brother for particulars, was informed by him that it had been over for +an hour when the storm set in at Boston; though it was apparently fair to +assume that the storm began sooner at Boston than at Philadelphia. This +information and further inquiry satisfied him that northeast storms +commence southward and work their way to the northeast at the rate of a +hundred miles an hour. When we read the words in which he stated his theory +of such storms, we begin to understand what Sir Humphry Davy meant in +saying that science appeared in Franklin's language in a dress wonderfully +decorous, and best adapted to display her native loveliness. + + Suppose [he said to Jared Eliot] a great tract of + country, land and sea, to wit, Florida and the Bay of + Mexico, to have clear weather for several days, and to + be heated by the sun, and its air thereby exceedingly + rarefied. Suppose the country northeastward, as + Pennsylvania, New England, Nova Scotia, and + Newfoundland, to be at the same time covered with + clouds, and its air chilled and condensed. The rarefied + air being lighter must rise, and the denser air next to + it will press into its place; that will be followed by + the next denser air, that by the next, and so on. Thus, + when I have a fire in my chimney, there is a current of + air constantly flowing from the door to the chimney; + but the beginning of the motion was at the chimney, + where the air being rarefied by the fire rising, its + place was supplied by the cooler air that was next to + it, and the place of that by the next, and so on to the + door. So the water in a long sluice or mill-race, being + stopped by a gate, is at rest like the air in a calm; + but as soon as you open the gate at one end to let it + out, the water next the gate begins first to move, that + which is next to it follows; and so, though the water + proceeds forward to the gate, the motion which began + there runs backward, if one may so speak, to the upper + end of the race, where the water is last in motion. + +It may be truly said of every province of scientific research into which +Franklin ventured that he brought to it a bold and original spirit of +speculation which gave it new interest and meaning. Even when he was not +the first to kindle a light, he had a happy and effective way of trimming +it anew and freshening its radiance. To Collinson he wrote on one occasion, +"But I must own I am much in the _Dark_ about _Light_." But noonday is not +more luminous than what he had to say on the subject in this letter. + + May not all the Phaenomena of Light [he asked] be more + conveniently solved, by supposing universal Space + filled with a subtle elastic Fluid, which, when at + rest, is not visible, but whose Vibrations affect that + fine Sense the Eye, as those of Air do the grosser + Organs of the Ear? We do not, in the Case of Sound, + imagine that any sonorous Particles are thrown off from + a Bell, for Instance, and fly in strait Lines to the + Ear; why must we believe that luminous Particles leave + the Sun and proceed to the Eye? Some Diamonds, if + rubbed, shine in the Dark, without losing any Part of + their Matter. I can make an Electrical Spark as big as + the Flame of a Candle, much brighter, and, therefore, + visible farther, yet this is without Fuel; and, I am + persuaded no part of the Electric Fluid flies off in + such Case to distant Places, but all goes directly, and + is to be found in the Place to which I destine it. May + not different Degrees of Vibration of the + above-mentioned Universal Medium occasion the + Appearances of different Colours? I think the Electric + Fluid is always the same; yet I find that weaker and + stronger Sparks differ in apparent Colour; some white, + blue, purple, red; the strongest, White; weak ones, + red. Thus different Degrees of Vibration given to the + Air produce the 7 different Sounds in Music, analagous + to the 7 Colours, yet the Medium, Air, is the same. + +"Universal Space, as far as we know of it," he declared in his _Loose +Thoughts on a Universal Fluid_, "seems to be filled with a subtil Fluid, +whose Motion, or Vibration is called Light." And he then proceeds to found +on this statement a series of speculations marked by too high a degree of +temerity to have much scientific value. One sentiment in the paper, +however, is well worth recalling as showing how clearly its author had +grasped the conservation of matter. "The Power of Man relative to Matter," +he observed, "seems limited to the dividing it, or mixing the various kinds +of it, or changing its Form and Appearance by different Compositions of it; +but does not extend to the making or creating of new Matter, or +annihilating the old." + +The Science of Palæontology was in its infancy during the lifetime of +Franklin. Many years before Cuvier gave the name of mastodon to the +prehistoric beast, whose fossil remains had been brought to sight from time +to time in different parts of the world, George Croghan, the Indian trader, +sent to Franklin a box of tusks and grinders, which had been found near the +Ohio, and which he supposed to be parts of a dismembered elephant. In his +reply of thanks, Franklin observed that the tusks were nearly of the same +form and texture as those of the African and Asiatic elephant. "But the +grinders differ," he added, "being full of knobs, like the grinders of a +carnivorous animal; when those of the elephant, who eats only vegetables, +are almost smooth. But then we know of no other animal with tusks like an +elephant, to whom such grinders might belong." The fact that, while +elephants inhabited hot countries only, fragments such as those sent to him +by Croghan were found in climates like those of the Ohio Territory and +Siberia, looked, Franklin concluded, "as if the earth had anciently been in +another position, and the climates differently placed from what they are at +present." Contrasting the observations of this letter with the paper read +long afterwards by Thomas Jefferson before the American Philosophical +Society on the bones of a large prehistoric quadruped resembling the sloth, +William B. Scott, the American palæontologist, remarks: + + Franklin's opinions are nearer to our present beliefs + than were Jefferson's, written nearly forty years + later. Of course, we now know that Franklin was + mistaken in supposing that such bones were found only + in what is now Kentucky and in Peru, and his comparison + of the teeth of the mastodon with the "grinders of a + carnivorous animal" is not very happy, but the + inferences are remarkably sound, when we consider the + state of geological knowledge in 1767. + +In a letter to Antoine Court de Gébelin, the author of the _Monde +Primitif_, Franklin gave him a valuable caution, in relation to apparent +linguistic variations. Strangers, who learnt the language of an Indian +nation, he said, finding no orthography, formed each his own orthography +according to the usual sounds given to the letters in his own language. +Thus the same words of the Mohawk language, written by an English, a French +and a German interpreter, often differed very much in the spelling. + +Franklin's letters to Herschel, Maskelyne, Rittenhouse, Humphrey Marshall +and James Bowdoin reveal a keen interest in astronomy, but this is not one +of the fields from which he came off _cum laude_. Gratifying to the pride +of an American, however, is an observation which he made to William +Herschel, when the latter sent to him for the American Philosophical +Society a catalogue of one thousand new nebulæ and star-clusters and stated +at the same time that he had discovered two satellites, which revolved +about the Georgian planet. In congratulating him on the discovery, Franklin +said: + + You have wonderfully extended the Power of human + Vision, and are daily making us Acquainted with Regions + of the Universe totally unknown to mankind in former + Ages. Had Fortune plac'd you in this part of America, + your Progress in these Discoveries might have been + still more rapid, as from the more frequent clearness + of our Air, we have near one Third more in the year of + good observing Days than there are in England. + +The production of cold by evaporation was another subject which enlisted +the eager interest of Franklin. In co-operation with Dr. Hadley, the +Professor of Chemistry at Cambridge, England, he was so successful in +covering a ball with ice by wetting it from time to time with ether, and +blowing upon the ether with a bellows, that he could write to John Lining +in these words: "From this experiment one may see the possibility of +freezing a man to death on a warm summer's day, if he were to stand in a +passage through which the wind blew briskly, and to be wet frequently with +ether, a spirit that is more inflammable than brandy, or common spirits of +wine." + +Geology was in its infancy during Franklin's time, but he hazarded some +conjectures about the formation of the earth that are perhaps not less +trustworthy than those advanced by riper geologists. In the letter, in +which these conjectures were communicated to the Abbé Soulavie, he said: + + Part of the high county of Derby being probably as much + above the level of the sea, as the coal mines of + Whitehaven were below it, seemed a proof that there had + been a great _bouleversement_ in the surface of that + Island (Great Britain), some part of it having been + depressed under the sea, and other parts which had been + under it being raised above it.... Such changes in the + superficial parts of the globe [he continued] seemed to + me unlikely to happen if the earth were solid to the + centre. I therefore imagined that the internal parts + might be a fluid more dense, and of greater specific + gravity than any of the solids we are acquainted with; + which therefore might swim in or upon that fluid. Thus + the surface of the globe would be a shell, capable of + being broken and disordered by the violent movements of + the fluid on which it rested. + +The letter contains other speculations equally bold: + + It has long been a supposition of mine that the iron + contained in the substance of this globe, has made it + capable of becoming as it is a great magnet. That the + fluid of magnetism exists perhaps in all space; so that + there is a magnetical North and South of the universe + as well as of this globe, and that if it were possible + for a man to fly from star to star, he might govern his + course by the compass. That it was by the power of this + general magnetism this globe became a particular + magnet. In soft or hot iron the fluid of magnetism is + naturally diffused equally; when within the influence + of the magnet, it is drawn to one end of the Iron, made + denser there, and rare at the other, while the iron + continues soft and hot, it is only a temporary magnet: + If it cools or grows hard in that situation, it becomes + a permanent one, the magnetic fluid not easily resuming + its equilibrium. Perhaps it may be owing to the + permanent magnetism of this globe, which it had not at + first, that its axis is at present kept parallel to + itself, and not liable to the changes it formerly + suffered, which occasioned the rupture of its shell, + the submersions and emersions of its lands and the + confusion of its seasons. + +It was probably, Franklin thought, different relations between the earth +and its axis in the past that caused much of Europe, including the +mountains of Passy, on which he lived, and which were composed of limestone +rock and sea shells, to be abandoned by the sea, and to change its ancient +climate, which seemed, he said, to have been a hot one. + +The physical convulsions to which the earth had been subject in the past +were, however, in his opinion beneficent. + + Had [he said in a letter to Sir John Pringle] the + different strata of clay, gravel, marble, coals, + limestone, sand, minerals, &c., continued to lie level, + one under the other, as they may be supposed to have + done before these convulsions, we should have had the + use only of a few of the uppermost of the strata, the + others lying too deep and too difficult to be come at; + but the shell of the earth being broke, and the + fragments thrown into this oblique position, the + disjointed ends of a great number of strata of + different kinds are brought up to-day, and a great + variety of useful materials put into our power, which + would otherwise have remained eternally concealed from + us. So that what has been usually looked upon as a + _ruin_ suffered by this part of the universe, was, in + reality, only a preparation or means of rendering the + earth more fit for use, more capable of being to + mankind a convenient and comfortable habitation. + +The scientific conjectures of Franklin may not always have been sound, but +they are invariably so readable that we experience no difficulty in +understanding why the Abbé Raynal should have preferred his fictions to +other men's truths. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[51] The lightning rod in its origin encountered the same religious +misgivings as inoculation and insurance and many other ideas which have +promoted human progress and happiness. The Rev. Thomas Prince at the time +of the Lisbon earthquake thought that the more lightning rods there were +the greater was the danger that the earth might become perilously +surcharged with electricity. "In Boston," he said, "are more erected than +anywhere else in New England; and Boston seems to be more dreadfully +shaken. Oh! there is no getting out of the Mighty Hand of God! If we think +to avoid it in the Air we can not in the Earth. Yea, it may grow more +fatal." + +[52] The lines under the portrait of Franklin by Cochin do not hesitate to +exalt him above the most powerful forces of Nature and the authority of the +Gods: + + "C'est l'honneur et l'appui du nouvel hémisphère, + Les flots de l'Océan s'abaissent à sa voix; + Il réprime ou dirige à son gré le tonnerre. + Qui désarme les dieux peut-il craindre les rois?" + +[53] "With Franklin grasp the lightning's fiery wing," is a line in Thomas +Campbell's _Pleasures of Hope_. In his _Age of Bronze_, Byron asks in one +place why the Atlantic should "gird a tyrant's grave" + + "While Franklin's quiet memory climbs to heaven, + Calming the lightning which he thence hath riven." + +And in another place in the same poem he speaks of + + "Stoic Franklin's energetic shade, + Robed in the lightnings which his hand allayed." + +Crabbe in his tribute to "Divine Philosophy" in the _Library_ exclaims, + + "'Tis hers the lightning from the clouds to call, + And teach the fiery mischief where to fall." + +[54] The inductive process by which Franklin arrived at the identity of +lightning and electricity was set forth in one of his letters to John +Lining, of Charleston, dated March 18, 1755. The minutes kept by him of his +experiments and observations, contained, he said, the following entry: + +"November 7, 1749. Electrical fluid agrees with lightning in these +particulars. 1. Giving light. 2. Colour of the light. 3. Crooked direction. +4. Swift motion. 5. Being conducted by metals. 6. Crack or noise in +exploding. 7. Subsisting in water or ice. 8. Rending bodies it passes +through. 9. Destroying animals. 10. Melting metals. 11. Firing inflammable +substances. 12. Sulphureous smell. The electric fluid is attracted by +points. We do not know whether this property is in lightning. But since +they agree in all particulars wherein we can already compare them, is it +not probable they agree likewise in this? Let the Experiment be made." + +[55] The standing of Franklin as an inventor would be better established if +he had not been so resolute in his unwillingness to take out patents upon +his inventions. Besides the various inventions mentioned by us in the text, +he was the father of other valuable mechanical conceptions. The first hint +of the art of engraving upon earthenware appears to have originated with +him. Moved by his constant desire to inculcate moral truths, he suggested +about 1753 to a correspondent the idea of engraving from copper plates on +square chimney tiles "moral prints"; "which," to use his words, "being +about our Chimneys, and constantly in the Eyes of Children when by the +Fireside, might give Parents an Opportunity, in explaining them, to impress +moral Sentiments." + +He also appears to have anticipated the Argand burner. A description has +come down to us of a lamp devised by him which, with only three small +wicks, had a lustre equal to six candles. It was fitted with a pipe that +supplied fresh and cool air to its lights. If Franklin did not invent, he +was the first to communicate to his friend, Mr. Viny, the wheel +manufacturer at Tenderden, Kent, the art of flexing timber used in making +wheels for vehicles. But of few things did Franklin take a gloomier view +than the fate of the inventor as his observations in a letter to John +Lining, dated March 18, 1755, demonstrate. "One would not," he said, "of +all faculties or qualities of the mind, wish, for a friend, or a child, +that he should have that of invention. For his attempts to benefit mankind +in that way, however well imagined, if they do not succeed, expose him, +though very unjustly, to general ridicule and contempt; and, if they do +succeed, to envy, robbery, and abuse." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +Franklin as a Writer + + +Franklin, as Hume truly said, was the first great man of letters, for whom +Great Britain was beholden to America, and, among his writings, are some +that will always remain classics. But it is a mistake to think of him as in +any sense a professional author. He was entirely accurate when he declared +in the _Autobiography_ that prose-writing had been of great use to him in +the course of his life and a principal means of his advancement; but always +to him a pen was but an implement of action. When it had accomplished its +purpose, he threw it aside as a farmer discards a worn-out plowshare, or a +horse casts a shoe.[56] There is nothing in his writings or his utterances +to show that he ever regarded himself as a literary man, or ever harbored a +thought of permanent literary fame. The only productions of his pen, which +suggest the sandpaper and varnish of a professional writer, are his +Bagatelles, such as _The Craven Street Gazette_ and _The Ephemera_, +composed for the amusement of his friends; and, in writing them, the idea +of permanency was as completely absent from his mind as it was from that +of the Duke of Crillon, when he sent up his balloon in honor of the two +Spanish princes. The greater part of his writings were composed in haste, +and published anonymously, and without revision. And, when once published, +if they did not remain dispersed and neglected, it was only because their +merits were too great for them not to be snatched from the "abhorred abyss +of blank oblivion" by some disciple or friend of his, who had more regard +for posterity than he had. So far as we are aware, no edition of his +scientific essays or other writings was ever in the slightest degree +prompted by any personal concern or request of his. As soon as the didactic +purpose of the earlier chapters of the _Autobiography_ had been gratified +by the composition of those chapters, it was only by incessant proddings +and importunities that he could be induced to bring his narrative down to +as late a period as he did. When Lord Kames expressed a desire to have all +his publications, the only ones on which he could lay his hands were the +_Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind_, _Peopling of Countries, +etc._, the _Account of the New-invented Pennsylvanian Fireplaces_, and some +little magazine sketches. He had had, he wrote Lord Kames, daily +expectations of procuring some of his performances from a friend to whom he +had formerly sent them, when the author was in America, but this friend had +at length told him that he could not find them. "Very mortifying this to an +author," said Franklin, "that his works should so soon be lost!" When +Jefferson called upon him, during his last days, he placed in the former's +hands the valuable manuscript of his negotiations with Lord Howe, and it +was not until he had twice told Jefferson to keep it, in reply to +statements by Jefferson that he would return it, after reading it, that the +recipient could realize that the intention was to turn over the manuscript +to him absolutely. In a letter to Vaughan, he mentions that, after writing +a parable, probably that on Brotherly Love, he laid it aside and had not +seen it for thirty years, when a lady, a few days before, furnished him +with a copy that she had preserved. + +The indifference of Franklin to literary reputation is all the more +remarkable in view of the clearness with which he foresaw the increased +patronage that the future had in store for English authors. "I assure you," +he wrote on one occasion to Hume, "it often gives me pleasure to reflect, +how greatly the _audience_ (if I may so term it) of a good English writer +will, in another century or two, be increased by the increase of English +people in our colonies." Twenty-four years later, he had already lived long +enough to see his prescience in this respect to no little extent verified. + + By the way [he wrote to William Strahan], the rapid + Growth and extension of the English language in + America, must become greatly Advantageous to the + book-sellers, and holders of Copy-Rights in England. A + vast audience is assembling there for English Authors + ancient, present, and future, our People doubling every + twenty Years; and this will demand large and of course + profitable Impressions of your most valuable Books. I + would, therefore, if I possessed such rights, entail + them, if such a thing be practicable, upon my + Posterity; for their Worth will be continually + augmenting. + +This grave advice was followed by the jolly laugh that was never long +absent from the intercourse between Franklin and Strahan. "This," Franklin +said, "may look a little like Advice, and yet I have drank no _Madeira_ +these Ten Months." + +The manner in which Franklin acquired the elements of his literary +education is one of the inspiring things in the history of knowledge. At +the age of ten, as we have seen, he was done forever with all schools +except those of self-education and experience; but he had one of those +minds that simply will not be denied knowledge. Even while he was pouring +tallow into his father's moulds, he was reading the _Pilgrim's Progress_, +Burton's _Historical Collections_, "small chapmen's books, and cheap, 40 or +50 in all," Plutarch's _Lives_, Defoe's _Essay on Projects_ and Cotton +Mather's _Essay upon the Good that is to be Devised and Designed by those +who desire to answer the Great end of Life, and to do Good while they +Live_; all books full of wholesome and stimulating food for a hungry mind. +Happily for him, his propensity for reading found ampler scope when his +father bound him over as an apprentice to James Franklin. Here he had +access to better books. + + An acquaintance with the apprentices of book-sellers + [he tells us in the _Autobiography_] enabled me + sometimes to borrow a small one, which I was careful to + return soon and clean. Often I sat up in my room + reading the greatest part of the night, when the book + was borrowed in the evening and to be returned early in + the morning, lest it should be missed or wanted. + +This clandestine use of what did not belong to him or to his obliging young +friends was an illicit enjoyment; but was one of those offences, we may be +sure, for which the Recording Angel has an expunging tear. More legitimate +was the use that he made of the volumes lent to him by Mr. Matthew Adams, +who had a pretty collection of books, and who frequented the +printing-house, took notice of him and invited him to his library, and very +kindly lent him such books as he chose to read. As we have seen, it was not +long before Benjamin struck a bargain with his brother, by which the +obligation of the latter to board him was commuted into a fixed weekly sum, +which, though only half what had been previously paid by James for his +weekly board, proved large enough to afford the boy a fund for buying books +with. Not only under this arrangement did he contrive to save for this +purpose one half of the sum allowed him by James but also to secure an +additional margin of time for reading. + + My brother and the rest [Franklin tells us in the + _Autobiography_] going from the printing-house to their + meals, I remained there alone, and, despatching + presently my light repast, which often was no more than + a bisket or a slice of bread, a handful of raisins or a + tart from the pastry-cook's, and a glass of water, had + the rest of the time till their return for study, in + which I made the greater progress, from that greater + clearness of head and quicker apprehension which + usually attend temperance in eating and drinking. + +Then it was that he read Locke's _Essay on Human Understanding_ and the +_Art of Thinking_ by "Messrs. du Port Royal." To the same period belongs +his provoking dalliance with the Socratic method of reasoning. + +From reading the works of others to what Sir Fopling Flutter called "the +natural sprouts" of one's own brain is always but a short step for a clever +and ambitious boy. Franklin's first literary ventures were metrical ones, +the lispings that filled the mind of his uncle Benjamin with such glowing +anticipations, and "some little pieces" which excited the commercial +instincts of James Franklin to the point of putting Benjamin to composing +occasional ballads. The subject of one ballad, _The Light House Tragedy_, +was the death by drowning of Captain Worthilake and his two daughters; +another ballad was a sailor's song on the taking of Teach (or Blackbeard), +the flagitious pirate. The opinion of these ballads held by Franklin is +probably just enough, if we may judge by his subsequent irruptions into the +province of Poetry. + + They were wretched stuff, in the Grub-Street-ballad + style [he says in the _Autobiography_], and when they + were printed he (James Franklin) sent me about the town + to sell them. The first sold wonderfully, the event + being recent, having made a great noise. This + flattered my vanity; but my father discouraged me by + ridiculing my performances, and telling me verse-makers + were generally beggars. So I escaped being a poet, most + probably a very bad one. + +From the doggerel, thus condemned by the hard head of Josiah, Benjamin +turned to prose. Believing that in oral discussion with his friend Collins +on the qualifications of women for learning, he had been borne down rather +by the fluency than the logic of his antagonist, he reduced his arguments +to writing, copied them in a fair hand and sent them to Collins. He +replied, and Franklin rejoined, and no less than three or four letters had +been addressed by each of the friends to the other when the correspondence +happened to fall under the eye of Josiah. Again the son had reason to be +thankful for the candid discernment of the father, for Josiah pointed out +to him that, while he had the advantage of Collins in correct spelling and +pointing (thanks to the printing-house) he fell far short of Collins in +elegance of expression, method and perspicuity, all of which he illustrated +by references to the correspondence. + +The son realized the justice of the father's criticisms, and resolved to +amend his faults. The means to which he resorted he has laid before us in +the _Autobiography_: + + About this time [he says] I met with an odd volume of + the _Spectator_. It was the third. I had never before + seen any of them. I bought it, read it over and over, + and was much delighted with it. I thought the writing + excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With + this view 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 at the book, try'd + to compleat the papers again, by expressing each hinted + sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been + expressed before, in any suitable words that should + come to hand. Then I compared my _Spectator_ with the + original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected + them. But I found I wanted a stock of words, or a + readiness in recollecting and using them, which I + thought I should have acquired before that time if I + had gone on making verses; since the continual occasion + for words of the same import, but of different length, + to suit the measure, or of different sound for the + rhyme, would have laid me under a constant necessity of + searching for variety, and also have tended to fix that + variety in my mind, and make me master of it. Therefore + I took some of the tales, and turned them into verse; + and, after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the + prose, turned them back again. I also sometimes jumbled + my collection of hints into confusion, and after some + weeks endeavoured to reduce them into the best order, + before I began to form the full sentences and compleat + the paper. This was to teach me method in the + arrangement of thoughts. By comparing my work + afterwards with the original, I discovered many faults + and amended them; but I sometimes had the pleasure of + fancying that, in certain particulars of small import, + I had been lucky enough to improve the method of the + language, and this encouraged me to think I might + possibly in time come to be a tolerable English writer, + of which I was extreamly ambitious. My time for these + exercises and for reading was at night, after work or + before it began in the morning, or on Sundays, when I + contrived to be in the printing-house alone, evading as + much as I could the common attendance on public worship + which my father used to exact of me when I was under + his care, and which indeed I still thought a duty, + though I could not, as it seemed to me, afford time to + practise it. + +The next step in Benjamin's literary development was when he contrived to +disguise his handwriting and thrust the first of his Silence Dogood letters +under the door of his brother's printing-house; and we can readily imagine +what his feelings were when the group of contributors to the _Courant_, who +frequented the place, read it and commented on it, in his hearing, and +afforded him what he terms in the _Autobiography_ the exquisite pleasure +of finding that it met with their approbation; and that in their different +guesses at the author none were named but men of some character in the town +for learning and ingenuity. Encouraged by his success, he wrote and +communicated to the _Courant_ in the same furtive way the other letters in +the Silence Dogood series, keeping his secret, he tells us, until his small +fund of sense for such performances was pretty well exhausted, when he +disclosed his authorship, only to arouse the jealousy of the churlish +brother, who, alone of the _Courant_ circle, failed to regard him with +augmented respect. If there was no extrinsic evidence to fix the authorship +of the Dogood letters, their intrinsic characteristics, incipient as they +are, would be enough to disclose the hand of Franklin. The good dame, who +finally succumbed to the rhetoric of her reverend master and protector, +after he had made several fruitless attempts on the more topping part of +her sex, bears very much the same family lineaments as the Anthony Afterwit +and Alice Addertongue of the _Pennsylvania Gazette_. Deprived of her good +husband by inexorable death, when her sun was in its meridian altitude, she +proceeds to gratify her natural inclination for observing and reproving the +faults of others, and to open up her mind in a way that leaves us little +room for doubt as to who the lively, free-spirited and free-spoken boy was +that she concealed beneath her petticoats. "A hearty Lover of the Clergy +and all good Men, and a mortal Enemy to arbitrary Government & unlimited +Power," she was, she assures us in one letter, besides being courteous and +affable, good-humored (unless first provoked) and handsome, and sometimes +witty. In her next paper, she tells us that she had from her youth been +indefatigably studious to gain and treasure up in her mind all useful and +desirable knowledge, especially such as tends to improve the mind and +enlarge the understanding. With this frontispiece, she, from time to time, +delivers her views on various topics with glib vivacity, set off by Latin +quotations. In one letter, she falls asleep in her usual place of +retirement under the Great Apple Tree, and is transported in a dream to the +Temple of Learning (Harvard College), which we can only hope was not quite +so bad as it appeared to be when seen through the distorting medium of her +slumbers. Describing the concourse of outgoing students, she says, "SOME I +perceiv'd took to Merchandizing, others to Travelling, some to one Thing, +some to another, and some to Nothing; and many of them from henceforth, for +want of Patrimony, liv'd as poor as church Mice, being unable to dig, and +asham'd to beg, and to live by their Wits it was impossible." In another +letter, Silence unsparingly lashes the existing system of female education. +"Their Youth," she says, borrowing the words of an "ingenious writer," is +spent to teach them to stitch and sow, or make Baubles. "They are taught to +read indeed and perhaps to write their Names, or so; and that is the Heigth +of a Womans Education." + +In another letter, she holds up hoop-petticoats to laughter. If a number of +them, she declared, were well mounted on Noddle's Island, they would look +more like engines of war for bombarding the town than ornaments of the fair +sex; and she concludes by asking her sex, "whether they, who pay no Rates +or Taxes, ought to take up more Room in the King's Highway, than the Men, +who yearly contribute to the Support of the Government." + +Another letter makes unmerciful fun of an Elegy upon the much Lamented +Death of Mrs. Mehitebell Kitel, the wife of Mr. John Kitel, of Salem etc. + +Two lines, + + "Come let us mourn, for we have lost a + Wife, a Daughter, and a Sister," + +affords Silence an opportunity for some merry satire. Contrasting these +lines with Dr. Watts' + + "GUNSTON the Just, the Generous, and the Young," + +she says: + + The latter (Watts) only mentions three Qualifications + of _one_ Person who was deceased, which therefore could + raise Grief and Compassion but for _One_. Whereas the + former, (_our most excellent Poet_) gives his Reader a + Sort of an Idea of the Death of _Three Persons_, viz. + + --a Wife, a Daughter, and a Sister, + + which is _Three Times_ as great a Loss as the Death of + _One_, and consequently must raise _Three Times_ as + much Grief and Compassion in the Reader. + +It was a pity, Silence added, that such an excellent piece should not be +dignified with a particular name. Seeing that it could not justly be called +either _Epic_, _Saphhic_, _Lyric_ or _Pindaric_, nor any other name yet +invented, she presumed it might (in honour and remembrance of the dead) be +called the Kitelic. + +The next letter on freedom of speech was, or purported to be, an extract +from the _London Journal_, and is written in such a totally masculine +spirit that the reader might well have exclaimed like Hugh Evans in the +_Merry Wives of Windsor_: "I like not when a 'oman has a great peard; I spy +a great peard under her muffler." This is one of its masculine sentiments: +"Who ever would overthrow the Liberty of a Nation, must begin by subduing +the Freeness of Speech; a _Thing_ Terrible to Publick Traytors." + +And this is another, phrased very much as Grover Cleveland might have +phrased it. "The Administration of Government is nothing else but the +Attendance of the _Trustees of the People_ upon the Interest and Affairs of +the People." + +The next letter inveighs against hypocritical pretenders to religion. It +had for some time, Silence says, been a question with her whether a +commonwealth suffers more by hypocritical pretenders to religion, or by the +openly profane; but she is inclined to think that the hypocrite is the most +dangerous person of the two, especially if he sustains a post in the +Government, and his conduct is considered as it regards the public. The +local application of these remarks to Boston at the time could be left to +take care of itself. + +The next letter gives us another peep under Silence's petticoats, for it +advances a plan for the insurance of widows, worked out with actuarial +precision, and bearing the unmistakable earmarks of the projecting spirit +of the founder of the Junto. "For my own Part," Silence ends, "I have +nothing left to live on, but Contentment and a few Cows; and tho' I cannot +expect to be reliev'd by this Project, yet it would be no small +Satisfaction to me to See it put in Practice for the Benefit of Others." + +The next letter contains a missive from Margaret After cast, a forlorn +Virgin, well stricken in years and repentance, to Silence, in which the +writer, prompted by the provision for widows proposed by Silence, begs her +to form a project also for the relief of "all those penitent Mortals of the +fair Sex, that are like to be punish'd with their Virginity until old Age, +for the Pride and Insolence of their Youth." + +The next letter is a clever discourse on drunkenness. It hints at the truth +that Franklin afterwards insisted upon in the "Dialogue between Horatio and +Philocles" that we must stint sensual pleasure to really enjoy it, and sets +forth a vocabulary of cant terms for intoxication similar to that +subsequently published by him in the _Pennsylvania Gazette_. + +The next letter is on the forbidding subject of night-walkers. The +familiarity that it exhibits with the peripatetic side of Boston Common +after dark at that day makes it a little difficult for us to understand why +Franklin should ever have had occasion to tell us in the _Autobiography_, +as he does, how on his second voyage from Boston to New York, a grave, +sensible, matronlike Quakeress rescued him from the clutches of two young +women, who afterwards proved to be a couple of thievish strumpets. + +The final letter in the series is on the danger of religious zeal, if +immoderate. + +We have referred to these letters at some length, not only because they are +not too immature to be even now read with pleasure for their wit and humor, +but because they help to give us a still more faithful idea of the +rebellious youth of Franklin, which, if it had not been so full of scornful +protest against the whole system of New England Puritanism, might have +shaded off, with the chastening effects of time, into too passive a type of +liberalism for such a career as his. + +From the Dogood letters Benjamin passed as we have seen to the editorship +of the _Courant_ and to the gibes at the Boston clergy and magistracy, +which ended in his ignominious flight from that city. But never was there a +time in his youth, however restive under the check-rein, when his love of +books was not the chief resource of his life. When on his return from +Boston to Philadelphia, after receiving his father's blessing, it was the +fact that he had a great many books with him which led Governor Burnet of +New York to send for him, and to show him his large library, and to +discourse with him at considerable length about books and authors. He had +previously begun to have "some acquaintance among the young people" of +Philadelphia "that were lovers of reading," and subsequently came those +academic strolls with Osborne, Watson and Ralph through the woods along the +Schuylkill. And later even London, with all its tumult and dissipation, +could not long extinguish his thirst for the sweet, cool wells of human +thought and sentiment from which the soul of a gifted boy drinks with such +passionate eagerness. Circulating libraries were unknown at that time, but +he agreed on reasonable terms with Wilcox, a bookseller, with an immense +collection of second-hand books, whose shop was next door to his place of +lodging in Little Britain, that he might take home and read and return any +of his wares. We have already quoted the passages in the _Autobiography_ in +which he tells us that, during the eighteen months that he was in London in +his youth, he spent little upon himself except in seeing plays, and for +books; and that he read considerably. + +The _Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain_, which he +wrote while in London, of little value as it was in itself, yet also aided +in confirming his literary tendencies; for it arrested the attention of +Lyons, the author of _The Infallibility of Human Judgment_, who introduced +him to Bernard Mandeville, the author of the _Fable of the Bees_, "a most +facetious, entertaining companion," and Dr. Henry Pemberton, the author of +_A View of Sir I. Newton's Philosophy_. + +The love of reading, thus acquired by Franklin in early life, never +deserted him, and was afterwards strengthened by his own ever-increasing +library, which, before his death, became so large that he had to build a +spacious room for its reception at his home in Philadelphia, the books +owned by the other members of the Junto, the extensive library of James +Logan at Stenton, and the collections of the Philadelphia Library Company. +Even when his private business was too exacting to allow him time for any +other form of recreation, he still found time for reading, including the +acquirement of several modern languages, and the consequence was that, when +he began to write in earnest, he was well supplied with all the materials +for literary workmanship. + +While Franklin never became a professional writer, he was very scrupulous +about the typographical dress of what he wrote and not a little of a +purist in his choice of words. Nor does he seem to have been less averse +than authors usually are to editorial mutilation. Among his letters is one +to Woodfall, the printer of Junius' Letters, asking him to take care that +the compositor observed "strictly the Italicking, Capitalling and Pointing" +of the copy enclosed with the letter. Referring in a letter to William +Franklin to a reprint in the _London Chronicle_ of his "Edict by the King +of Prussia," he said: + + It is reprinted in the _Chronicle_, where you will see + it, but stripped of all the capitaling and italicing, + that intimate the allusions and mark the emphasis of + written discourses, to bring them as near as possible + to those spoken: printing such a piece all in one even + small character, seems to me like repeating one of + Whitefield's sermons in the monotony of a schoolboy. + +On another occasion he was led by the alterations made in the text of one +of his papers to write to William Franklin in these terms: "The editor of +that paper, one Jones, seems a Grenvillian, or is very cautious, as you +will see by his corrections and omissions. He has drawn the teeth and pared +the nails of my paper, so that it can neither scratch nor bite." + +Among the many delightful letters of Franklin is one that he wrote in his +extreme old age to Noah Webster, acknowledging the receipt of a copy of the +latter's _Dissertations on the English Language_, and applauding his zeal +for preserving the purity of the English language both in its expressions +and pronunciation; and in correcting the popular errors into which several +of the States were continually falling with respect to both. In this +letter, the writer again takes occasion to reprobate the use in New England +of the word "improved" in the sense of "employed." The word in that +signification appears to have been decidedly obnoxious to him, for he had +previously banned it in a letter to Jared Eliot. Among the ludicrous +instances that he gave in his letter to Webster of its use in its perverted +sense was an obituary statement to the effect that a certain deceased +country gentleman had been for more than thirty years _improved_ as a +justice of the peace. He also found, he said, that, during his absence in +France, several newfangled words had been introduced into the parliamentary +vocabulary of America, such as the verb formed from the substantive +"Notice," as "_I should not have NOTICED this, were it not that the +Gentleman_, &c.," the verb formed from the substantive "Advocate," as "_the +Gentleman who ADVOCATES or has ADVOCATED that Motion_, &c.," and the verb +formed from the substantive "progress," the most awkward and abominable of +the three, as "_the committee, having PROGRESSED resolved to adjourn_." He +also found that the word "opposed," though not a new word, was used in a +new manner, as "_the Gentlemen who are OPPOSED to this Measure_." From +these verbal criticisims he passed to the advantages that had inured to the +French language from obtaining the universal currency in Europe previously +enjoyed by Latin. It was perhaps, he thought, owing to the fact that +Voltaire's treatise on Toleration was written in French that it had exerted +so sudden and so great an effect on the bigotry of Europe as almost +entirely to disarm it. The English language bid fair to occupy a place only +second to that of the French, and the effort therefore should be to relieve +it still more of all the difficulties, however small, which discouraged its +more general diffusion. A book, ill-printed, or a pronunciation in +speaking, not well articulated, would render a sentence unintelligible, +which from a clear print, or a distinct speaker, would have been +immediately comprehended. + +Instead of diminishing, however, the obstacles to the extension of the +English language, Franklin declared, had increased. The practice, for +illustration, of beginning all substantives with a capital letter, which +had done so much to promote intelligibility, had been laid aside. And so, +from the same fondness for an even and uniform appearance, had been the +practice of italicizing important words, or words which should be +emphasized when read. Another innovation was the use of the short round s +instead of the long one which had formerly served so well to distinguish a +word readily by its varied aspect. Certainly the omission of these +prominent letters made the line appear more even, but it rendered it less +immediately legible; as the paring all men's noses might smooth and level +their faces, but would render their physiognomies less distinguishable. All +these, Franklin said, were improvements backwards, and classed with them +too should be the modern fancy that gray printing--read with difficulty by +old eyes--unless in a very strong light and with good glasses, was more +beautiful than black. A comparison between a volume of the _Gentleman's +Magazine_, printed between the years 1731 and 1740, and one printed in the +last ten years would demonstrate the contrary. Lord Chesterfield pleasantly +remarked this difference to Faulkener, the printer of the _Dublin Journal_, +when he was vainly making encomiums on his own paper as the most complete +of any in the world. "But, Mr. Faulkener," said my Lord, "don't you think +it might be still farther improved by using Paper and Ink not quite so near +of a Colour"? Another point in favor of clear and distinct printing was +that it afforded the eye, when it was being read aloud, an opportunity to +take a look forward in time to supply the voice with the proper modulations +for coming words. But, if words were obscurely printed or disguised by +omitting the capitals and the long s, or otherwise, the reader was apt to +modulate wrong, and, finding that he had done so, would be obliged to go +back, and begin the sentence again, with a loss of pleasure to his +hearers. + +Two features, however, of the old system of printing did not meet with the +approval of Franklin. It was absurd to place the interrogation point at the +end of a sentence where it is not descried until it is too late for the +inflection of interrogation to be given. The practice of the Spanish of +putting this point at the beginning of the sentence was more sensible. The +same reasoning was applicable to the practice of putting the stage +direction "aside" at the end of a sentence. + +Nice, however, as were the prejudices of Franklin with respect to the use +of words, some of his own did not escape the vigilant purism of Hume, who, +notwithstanding his admiration for Franklin, as the first great man of +letters produced by America, was, where fastidious diction was concerned, +not unlike John Randolph of Roanoke, whose exquisite fidelity to correct +English impelled him even on his death-bed, when asked whether he _lay_ +easily, to reply with marked emphasis, "I _lie_ as easily as a dying man +can." After reading Franklin's Canada pamphlet and essay on Population, +Hume took exception to several of his expressions; as is shown by one of +the latter's letters to him. + + I thank you [wrote Franklin] for your friendly + admonition relating to some unusual words in the + pamphlet. It will be of service to me. The "_pejorate_" + and the "_colonize_," since they are not in common use + here, I give up as bad; for certainly in writings + intended for persuasion and for general information, + one can not be too clear; and every expression in the + least obscure is a fault. The "_unshakeable_" too, + though clear, I give up as rather low. The introducing + new words, where we are already possessed of old ones + sufficiently expressive, I confess must be generally + wrong, as it tends to change the language; yet, at the + same time, I can not but wish the usage of our tongue + permitted making new words, when we want them, by + composition of old ones whose meanings are already well + understood. The German allows of it, and it is a + common practice with their writers. Many of our + present English words were originally so made; and many + of the Latin words. In point of clearness, such + compound words would have the advantage of any we can + borrow from the ancient or from foreign languages. For + instance, the word _inaccessible_, though long in use + among us, is not yet, I dare say, so universally + understood by our people, as the word _uncomeatable_ + would immediately be, which we are not allowed to + write. But I hope with you, that we shall always in + America make the best English of this Island our + standard, and I believe it will be so. + +Franklin has left behind him his own conception of what constitutes a good +piece of writing. + + To be good [he says] it ought to have a tendency to + benefit the reader, by improving his virtue or his + knowledge. But, not regarding the intention of the + author, the method should be just; that is, it should + proceed regularly from things known to things unknown, + distinctly and clearly without confusion. The words + used should be the most expressive that the language + affords, provided that they are the most generally + understood. Nothing should be expressed in two words + that can be as well expressed in one; that is, no + synonymes should be used, or very rarely, but the whole + should be as short as possible, consistent with + clearness; the words should be so placed as to be + agreable to the ear in reading; summarily it should be + smooth, clear and short, for the contrary qualities are + displeasing. + +Though entirely familiar, as we know from one of his letters, with the fate +that befell Gil Blas, when he was so imprudent as to comply with the +invitation of his master, the Archbishop, Franklin did not shrink from the +peril of telling Benjamin Vaughan at his request what the faults of his +writings were; and the terms in which he performed this delicate and +hazardous office were suggested in part at least by his own methods of +composition. + + Your language [he told Vaughan] seems to me to be good + and pure, and your sentiments generally just; but your + style of composition wants perspicuity, and this I + think owing principally to a neglect of method. What I + would therefore recommend to you is, that, before you + sit down to write on any subject, you would spend some + days in considering it, putting down at the same time, + in short hints, every thought which occurs to you as + proper to make a part of your intended piece. When you + have thus obtained a collection of the thoughts, + examine them carefully with this view, to find which of + them is properest to be presented _first_ to the mind + of the reader that he, being possessed of that, may the + more easily understand it, and be better disposed to + receive what you intend for the _second_; and thus I + would have you put a figure before each thought, to + mark its future place in your composition. For so, + every preceding proposition preparing the mind for that + which is to follow, and the reader often anticipating + it, he proceeds with ease, and pleasure, and + approbation, as seeming continually to meet with his + own thoughts. In this mode you have a better chance for + a perfect production; because the mind attending first + to the sentiments alone, next to the method alone, each + part is likely to be better performed, and I think too + in less time. + +The writings of Franklin as a whole were true to his literary ideals, for +they are, as a rule, smooth, clear and short; and the paper of preliminary +hints that he drew up for the composition of the _Autobiography_ was in +accord with his advice to Vaughan in regard to the value of such aids to +perspicuity. His familiar letters, agreeable as they are, bear evidence at +times of haste and lack of revision, and even his more informal writings, +other than letters, occasionally betray a certain sort of carelessness of +construction and expression. This is conspicuously true of the +_Autobiography_, and, indeed, it is one of the merits of that work, so +perfectly is it in keeping with its easy, meandering narrative. But, +generally speaking, the compositions of Franklin are fully in harmony with +his best standards of literary accomplishment. They are flowing and +euphonious, moving with a steady, smooth and sometimes powerful, current +from things known to things unknown, distinctly and lucidly without +confusion. They are as clear as a trout stream. If one of his sentences is +read a second time, it is not for his meaning, but merely for a renewal of +the gratification that the mind derives from a thought presented free from +the slightest trace of intercepting obscurity. They are so concise that the +endeavor to make an abstract of one of them is likely to result in a +sacrifice of brevity. But smoothness, clearness, and brevity, are far from +being the only merits of Franklin's writings. He was not richly endowed +with imagination; though he was by no means destitute of that sovereign +faculty; placid and sober as the ordinary operations of his mind were. But +Fancy, the graceful sister of Imagination, Invention, Wit and Humor, and +remarkable powers of statement and reasoning, all, except humor in its more +wayward moods, under the complete sway of a sound judgment, gave life and +strength to almost all that he wrote. His similes and metaphors are often +strikingly original and apt; never more so than when they light up with a +sudden flash the dark core of some abstruse scientific problem. A vivacity +of spirits that nothing could long depress, accompanied by a quick but +kindly sense of the ludicrous rises like bubbles of mellow wine to the +surface of his intimate letters, and other lighter compositions; and, when +associated with conceptions lured from the bright heaven of invention, and +elaborated with the utmost finish, as in the case of his Bagatelles, +imparts to his productions a quality that does not belong to any but the +best creations of literary genius. It is interesting to note how even the +most intractable subject, the new-invented Pennsylvania fireplace, smoky +chimneys, interest calculations become suffused with some sort of +intellectual charm, born of absolute transparency of speech, if nothing +else, as soon as they pass through the luminous and tapestried cells of +his spacious mind. That mind, indeed, like all minds of the same +comprehensive character, in which the balance has not been lost between the +subjective and objective faculties, was prone to see everything in large +pictorial outlines. Fable, epilogue, parable, a story that was not so much +the jest of a moment as the wisdom of all time, a historical incident, that +pointed some grave moral, or enforced some invaluable truth, came naturally +to his mind as they might well do to the minds of all men who are +creed-founders, or teachers, in any sense, on a large scale, of the mass of +men, as he was. How naturally such methods of instruction belonged to him +is well illustrated in the story told of him by John Adams. One evening, at +a social gathering, shortly before he left England, at the close of his +second mission to that country, a gentleman expressed the opinion that +writers like Æsop and La Fontaine had exhausted the resources of fable. +Franklin, so far from concurring with this view, declared that many new and +instructive fables could still be invented, and, when asked whether he +could think of one, replied that, if he was furnished with pen and paper, +he would produce one forthwith. The pen and paper were handed to him, and, +in a few minutes, he summed up the existing relations between England and +America in this fable: + + Once upon a time, an eagle, scaling round a farmer's + barn, and espying a hare, darted down upon him like a + sunbeam, seized him in his claws, and remounted with + him in the air. He soon found that he had a creature of + more courage and strength than a hare; for which, + notwithstanding the keenness of his eyesight, he had + mistaken a cat. The snarling and scrambling of the prey + was very inconvenient; and, what was worse, she had + disengaged herself from his talons, grasped his body + with her four limbs, so as to stop his breath, and + seized fast hold of his throat with her teeth. "Pray," + said the eagle, "let go your hold, and I will release + you." "Very fine," said the cat, "I have no fancy to + fall from this height, and be crushed to death. You + have taken me up, and you shall stoop, and let me + down." The eagle thought it necessary to stoop + accordingly. + +In the course of the preceding pages, we have had occasion to refer at +considerable length to not a few of Franklin's writings, but by no means to +all. Among the best of his published pamphlets, is the one entitled _The +Interest of Great Britain considered with regard to her Colonies and the +Acquisitions of Canada and Guadaloupe_. Remarkable as it may now seem, when +the peace of 1763 between Great Britain and France was approaching, there +was some division of opinion in the former country as to whether she should +insist upon the cession by France to her of Canada or Guadeloupe, then one +of the rich sugar islands of the West Indies; and the object of this +pamphlet was to establish the superior claims of Canada. It is written with +great lucidity and force of argument, and is especially valuable for its +revelations of the extent to which the acquisition of Canada by England was +opposed in England for fear that it would tend to augment the power and +precipitate the independence of the American Colonies. Richard Jackson is +alleged to have had a share in its composition, exactly what Benjamin +Vaughan was unable to say after a careful investigation before the +publication of his edition of Franklin's writings in 1779. For our part, we +find it difficult to believe that he could have had any considerable share +in its production. Internal evidences of authorship are undoubtedly +misleading, but it is hard to read this paper, so similar to Franklin's +other pamphlets in point of peculiarities of diction and method without +exclaiming, "St. Dunstan or the Devil!" Its intimate, nay perfect, +familiarity with Indian habits and characteristics could not well have been +possessed by anyone who had never personally mixed with the Indians, and +formed his knowledge of them from his own and other first-hand information. +The arguments, too, employed in the pamphlet to allay English jealousy of +colonial aggrandizement, are the same that are found scattered through +Franklin's other writings. There is also the fact that the authorship of +the paper is referred to in the paper itself throughout in the first person +singular. There is also the fact that in the same letter to Hume, in which +Franklin disclaims the authorship of the _Historical Review_, he told him, +in reply to one of his criticisms, that he gave up as rather low the word +"unshakeable," used in the Canada pamphlet, but said nothing to indicate +that the pamphlet was not wholly his own. More conclusive are the words in +the paper of hints upon which the composition of the _Autobiography_ was +based. "_Canada delenda est_. My Pamphlet. Its reception and effect." +Certainly a man, whose relations to his own productions were always marked +by an uncommon degree of modesty, if not of indifference, and whose +generosity in awarding due credit to the labors of others was one of his +most striking and laudable qualities, was scarcely the man to have used +such words as these about a pamphlet, mainly or largely the work of another +hand. There is besides the fact that in the Franklin collection of the +Pennsylvania Historical Society there is a copy of the pamphlet indorsed in +the handwriting of Franklin as presented "to the Rev. Dr. Mayhew, from his +humble servt, the Author." + +In view of these circumstances we should say that the probabilities +decidedly are that the connection of Jackson with the pamphlet, whatever it +may have been, was of a purely subordinate character. + +The papers, written by Franklin from time to time during the controversy +between Great Britain and her Colonies, before the sword grew too impatient +to remain in its scabbard, such as his letters to the _London Chronicle_ +and the _London Public Advertiser_, his Answers to Strahan's _Queries +respecting American Affairs_, his essay on _Toleration in Old England and +New England_, his _Tract relative to the Affair of Hutchinson's Letters_, +and his _Account of Negotiations in London for effecting a Reconciliation +between Great Britain and the American Colonies_ were, taken as a whole, +pamphleteering or narration of a very interesting and effective order. The +substance of the majority of them is found in his Examination before the +House of Commons, as the quintessence of most that is best in _Poor +Richard's Almanac_ is found in Father Abraham's Speech. They are written, +as a rule, in a singularly clear and readable style, present with unusual +skill and cogency all the points of the colonial argument, and display the +insight of an almost faultlessly honest and sane intelligence into the true +obligations and interests of the mother country and her disaffected +children. Among these graver productions, Franklin also contributed to the +American controversy, in addition to the humorous letter to the press, in +which he held up to English ignorance of America, as one of the finest +spectacles in nature, the grand leap of the whale, in his chase of the cod +up Niagara Falls, two papers worthy of the satirical genius of Swift. One +is his _Edict by the King of Prussia_ and the other is his _Rules by Which +a Great Empire May be Reduced to a Small One_. In the first piece, +Frederick the Great is gravely credited with an edict, in which, after +reciting that Great Britain was colonized in the beginning by subjects of +his renowned ducal ancestors, led by Hengist, Horsa, Hella, Uff, Cerdicus, +Ida and others, he proceeds to impose _seriatim_ upon the English +descendants of these German colonists in terms, exactly like those employed +by the prohibitory and restrictive statutes of Great Britain, bearing upon +the commerce and industry of America, all the disabilities and burdens +under which America labored. The parallel is sustained with unbroken spirit +and the happiest irony from beginning to end. After all the manacles by +which the freedom of America was restrained have been duly fastened by the +arbitrary mandates of the edict upon Great Britain herself, it concludes +with these words: + + We flatter ourselves, that these our royal regulations + and commands will be thought just and reasonable by our + much-favoured colonists in England; the said + regulations being copied from their statutes of 10 and + 11 William III. c. 10, 5 Geo. II. c. 22, 23 Geo. II. c. + 29, 4 Geo. I. c. 11, and from other equitable laws made + by their parliaments; or from instructions given by + their Princes; or from resolutions of both Houses, + entered into for the good government of their _own + colonies in Ireland and America_. + +The second paper commences in this manner: + +"An ancient Sage boasted, that, tho' he could not fiddle, he knew how to +make a _great city_ of a _little one_. The science that I, a modern +simpleton, am about to communicate, is the very reverse." Then, assuming as +a postulate that a great empire, like a great cake, is most easily +diminished at the edges, the paper goes on to point out one by one as the +best means for reducing such an empire to a small one the very British +policies and abuses that were then producing incurable disaffection in the +mind of America, and menacing the power and prestige of Great Britain +herself. These two papers, though clothed in forms that belong to +literature rather than to politics, assert the whole case of the Colonies +against Great Britain almost, if not altogether, as fully as the +Declaration of Independence afterwards did. They have in every respect the +polished completeness given by Franklin to all the productions of his pen +that called for the exercise of true literary art, and deserve to be +included in any separate publication of the best creations of his literary +genius. They both met with the popular favor that they merited. The Rules +was read with such eagerness that it was reprinted in the _Public +Advertiser_ at the request of many individuals and some associations of +individuals, and this notwithstanding the fact that it had been copied in +several other newspapers and _The Gentleman's Magazine_. So great was the +demand for the issue of the _Advertiser_, in which the Edict appeared, +that, the day after its appearance, Franklin's clerk could obtain but two +copies of it, though he endeavored to obtain more both at the office of the +_Advertiser_ and elsewhere. Its authorship being unknown except to a few of +the writer's friends, he had the pleasure besides, he tells us, of hearing +it spoken of in the highest terms as the keenest and severest piece that +had been published in London for a long time. Lord Mansfield, he was +informed, said of it that it was very able and artful indeed, and would do +mischief by giving in England a bad impression of the measures of +government, and in the Colonies by encouraging them in their contumacy. +Among the persons taken in by its apparent genuineness was Paul Whitehead. + + I was down at Lord Le Despencer's [Franklin wrote to + William Franklin] when the post brought that day's + papers. Mr. Whitehead was there, too, (Paul Whitehead, + the author of _Manners_,) who runs early through all + the papers, and tells the company what he finds + remarkable. He had them in another room, and we were + chatting in the breakfast parlour, when he came running + in to us, out of breath, with the paper in his hand. + Here! says he, here's news for ye! _Here's the King of + Prussia, claiming a right to this kingdom!_ All stared, + and I as much as anybody; and he went on to read it. + When he had read two or three paragraphs, a gentleman + present said, _Damn his impudence, I dare say, we shall + hear by next post that he is upon his march with one + hundred thousand men to back this._ Whitehead who is + very shrewd, soon after began to smoke it, and looking + in my face said, _I'll be hanged if this is not some of + your American jokes upon us._ The reading went on, and + ended with abundance of laughing, and a general verdict + that it was a fair hit; and the piece was cut out of + the paper and preserved in My Lord's collection. + +There are some humorous passages in other contributions made by Franklin, +in one assumed character or another, to the American controversy. The +dialogue as well as the fable was, as the reader is aware, one of his +striking methods of arresting popular attention when he wished to make an +impression upon the popular mind. In an anonymous letter to the _Public +Advertiser_, he undertook to defend Dr. Franklin from the charge of +ingratitude to the Ministry, which had, it was alleged, given him the Post +Office of America, offered him a post of five hundred a year in the Salt +Office, if he would relinquish the interests of his country and made his +son a colonial governor. As it was a settled point in government in England +that every man had his price, it was plain, the letter declared, that the +English Ministers were bunglers in their business, and had not given him +enough. Their Master had as much reason to be angry with them as Rodrigue +in the play with his apothecary for not effectually poisoning Pandolpho, +and they must probably make use of the Apothecary's Justification, as urged +in the following colloquy: + + SCENE IV. _Rodrigue_ and _Fell_, the Apothecary + + _Rodrigue._ You promised to have this Pandolpho upon + his Bier in less than a Week; 'tis more than a Month + since, and he still walks and stares me in the face. + + _Fell._ True and yet I have done my best Endeavours. In + various ways I have given the Miscreant as much Poison + as would have kill'd an Elephant. He has swallow'd Dose + after Dose; far from hurting him, he seems the better + for it. He hath a wonderfully strong Constitution. I + find I can not kill him but by cutting his Throat, and + that, as I take it, is not my Business. + + _Rodrigue._ Then it must be mine. + +Another letter, signed "A Londoner," illustrates the difficulty which the +sober good-sense of Franklin, always disposed to reduce things to their +material terms, experienced in understanding the recklessness with which +the British Government was hazarding the commercial value of the colonies. + + To us in the Way of Trade comes now, and has long come + [he said] all the superlucration arising from their + Labours. But will our reviling them as Cheats, + Hypocrites, Scoundrels, Traitors, Cowards, Tyrants, + &c., &c., according to the present Court Mode in all + our Papers, make them more our Friends, more fond of + our Merchandise? Did ever any Tradesmen succeed, who + attempted to drub Customers into his Shop? And will + honest JOHN BULL, the Farmer, be long satisfied with + Servants, that before his Face attempt to kill his + _Plow Horses?_ + +In his eager desire to influence public sentiment in England in behalf of +the Colonies, Franklin even devised and distributed a rude copper plate +engraving, visualizing the woful condition to which Great Britain would be +reduced, if she persisted in her harsh and unwise conduct towards her +colonies. Many impressions of this engraving were struck off at his request +on the cards which he occasionally used in writing his notes, and the +design he also had printed for circulation on half sheets of paper with an +explanation and a moral of his composition. The details of the +illustration, which are all duly elucidated in the explanation, are those +of abject and irredeemable ruin. The limbs of Britannia, duly labelled +Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York and New England respectively, lie +scattered about her, and she herself, with her eyes and arm stumps, +uplifted to Heaven, is seen sliding off the globe, with a streamer +inscribed _Date Obolum Bellisario_ thrown across all that remains of her +legs. Her shield, which she is unable to handle, lies useless by her side. +The leg, labelled New England, has been transfixed by her lance. The hand +of the arm, labelled Pennsylvania, has released its grasp upon a small +spray of laurel. The English oak has lost its crown, and stands a bare +trunk with briars and thorns at its feet, and a single dry branch sticks +out from its side. In the background are Britannia's ships with brooms at +their topmastheads denoting that they are for sale. The moral of the whole +was that the Thames and the Ohio, Edinburgh and Dublin were all one, and +that invidious discriminations in favor of one part of the Empire to the +prejudice of the rest could not fail to be attended with the most +disastrous consequences to the whole State. + +Nothing produced by Franklin between the date of his return from his second +mission to England and his departure from America for France needs to be +noticed. The two or three papers from his pen, which belong to this period, +are distinctly below his ordinary standards of composition. Nor are any of +the graver writings composed by him during the remainder of his life with +some exceptions very noteworthy. In one, his comparison of Great Britain +and the United States in regard to the basis of credit in the two +countries, he presented with no little ability the proposition that, by +reason of general industry, frugality, ability, prudence and virtue, +America was a much safer debtor than Britain; to say nothing of the +satisfaction that generous minds were bound to feel in reflecting that by +loans to America they were opposing tyranny, and aiding the cause of +liberty, which was the cause of all mankind. The object of this paper was +to forward the loan of two millions of pounds sterling that the United +States were desirous of procuring abroad. Unfortunately, the matter was one +not to be settled by argument but by the Bourse, which has a barometric +reasoning of its own. In another paper, thrown into the form of a +catechism, Franklin, by a series of clever questions and answers, brings to +the attention of the world the fact that it would take one hundred and +forty-eight years, one hundred and nine days and twenty-two hours for a +man to count the English national debt, though he counted at the rate of +one hundred shillings per minute, during twelve hours of each day. That the +shillings, making up this enormous sum, would weigh sixty-one millions, +seven hundred and fifty-two thousand, four hundred and seventy-six Troy +pounds, that it would take three hundred and fourteen ships, of one hundred +tons each, or thirty-one thousand, four hundred and fifty-two carts to move +them, and that, if laid close together in a straight line, they would +stretch more than twice around the circumference of the earth, are other +facts elicited by the questions of the catechism. It concludes in this +manner: + + Q. When will government be able to pay the principal? + + A. When there is more money in England's treasury than + there is in all Europe. + + Q. And when will that be? + + A. Never. + +This was very ingenious and clever, and has been imitated a hundred times +over since by _ad captandum_ statisticians, but it needed an interest +default on the part of John Bull to make it effective. + +Franklin's conceit in the Edict that Saxony was as much the mother country +of England as England was of America was, it must be admitted, made to do +rather more than its share of service. It reappeared in his _Vindication +and Offer from Congress to Parliament_, when, in repelling the charge that +America was ungrateful to England, he said that there was much more reason +for retorting that charge on Britain which not only never contributed any +aid, nor afforded, by an exclusive commerce, any advantages, to Saxony, +_her_ mother country, but no longer since than the last war, without the +least provocation, subsidized the King of Prussia, while he ravaged that +mother country, and carried fire and sword into its capital, the fine City +of Dresden. + +The same conceit also reappeared a second time in the _Dialogue between +Britain, France, Spain, Holland, Saxony and America_, which he wrote soon +after he arrived in France as one of our envoys. In this lively dialogue, +Britain beseeches Spain, France and Holland successively not to supply +America with arms. Spain reminds her of her intervention in behalf of the +Dutch, and expresses surprise at her impudence. France reminds her of her +intervention in behalf of the Huguenots, and tells her that she must be a +little silly, and Holland ends by informing her defiantly that, with the +prospect of a good market for brimstone, she, Holland, would make no +scruple of even sending her ships to Hell, and supplying the Devil with it. +America then takes a hand, and denounces Britain as a bloodthirsty bully, +to which Britain replies as quickly as her choking rage will permit by +denouncing America as a wicked--Whig-Presbyterian--serpent. To this America +rejoins with the statement that she will not surrender her liberty and +property but with her life, and some additional statements which cause +Britain to exclaim: "You impudent b--h! Am not I your Mother Country? Is +that not a sufficient Title to your Respect and Obedience?" At this point +Saxony, for the first time breaks in: + + "_Mother Country!_ Hah, hah, he! What Respect have + _you_ the front to claim as a Mother Country? You know + that _I_ am _your_ Mother Country, and yet you pay me + none. Nay, it is but the other day, that you hired + Ruffians to rob me on the Highway, and burn my House. + For shame! Hide your Face and hold your Tongue. If you + continue this Conduct, you will make yourself the + Contempt of Europe!" + +This is too much for even the assurance of the dauntless termagant who, +before the American war was over, was to be engaged in conflict at one time +with every one of the other parties to the dialogue except Saxony. + + "O Lord," she exclaims in despair, "where are my + friends?" The question does not remain long unanswered. + + "_France, Spain, Holland, and Saxony, all together_. + Friends! Believe us, you have none, nor ever will have + any, 'till you mend your Manners. How can we, who are + your Neighbours, have any regard for you, or expect any + Equity from you, should your Power increase, when we + see how basely and unjustly you have us'd both _your + own Mother--and your own Children_?" + +With such rollicking fun, did Franklin, beguile his Gibeonite tasks. + +A letter of information to those who would remove to America, an essay on +the _Elective Franchises enjoyed by the Small Boroughs in England_, the +three essays on Smoky Chimneys, the New Stove, and Maritime Topics, _The +Retort Courteous_, in which some pithy reasons were given why Americans +were slow in paying their old debts to British merchants, the _Observations +Relative to the Intentions of the Original Founders of the Academy in +Philadelphia_, the _Address of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the +Abolition of Slavery and the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in +Bondage_, the _Plan for Improving the Condition of the Free Blacks_, the +essay on _The Internal State of America_ and the paper on _Good Whig +Principles_ make up the bulk of the graver pamphlets and papers written by +Franklin between the beginning of his mission to France and his death. +Some, if not all, of them have already come in for our attention, and most +of them invite no special comment. All, like everything that he wrote, even +the _marginalia_ on the books that he read, have some kind of salt in them +that keeps them sweet, assert itself as time will. + +Other serious papers of Franklin, not inspired by political motives, belong +to an earlier date, and, with the exception of those, to which we have more +than barely referred in previous chapters of this book, call for a word of +comment. Two, _The Hints for Those that would be Rich_ and the _Advice to a +Young Tradesman_ are merely echoes of _Poor Richard's Almanac_ but are good +examples of the teachings that make Franklin the most effective of all +propagandists. "He that loses 5s. not only loses that Sum, but all the +Advantage that might be made by turning it in Dealing, which, by the time +that a young Man becomes old, amounts to a comfortable Bag of Money." This +is a typical sentence taken from the Hints. After reading such a discourse +as the _Advice to a Young Tradesman_, it is easy enough to see why it was +that pecuniary truisms took on new life when vitalized by the mind of +Franklin. Money he tells the young tradesman is of the prolific, generating +nature. "He that kills a breeding sow, destroys all her offspring to the +thousandth generation. He that murders a crown, destroys all that it might +have produced, even scores of pounds." The young novice is also told that +the most trifling actions that affect a man's credit are to be regarded. +"The sound of your hammer at five in the morning, or nine at night, heard +by a creditor, makes him easy six months longer; but, if he sees you at a +billiard-table, or hears your voice at a tavern, when you should be at +work, he sends for his money the next day." The paper ends with this +pointed sermon: + + In short, the way to wealth, if you desire it, is as + plain as the way to market. It depends chiefly on two + words, _industry_ and _frugality_; that is, waste + neither _time_ nor _money_, but make the best use of + both. Without industry and frugality nothing will do, + and with them everything. He that gets all he can + honestly, and saves all he gets (necessary expenses + excepted) will certainly become _rich_, if that Being + who governs the world, to whom all should look for a + blessing on their honest endeavours, doth not, in his + wise providence, otherwise determine. + +Scattered through the works of Franklin are various miscellaneous +productions of no slight literary value. The _Parable against Persecution_ +was an ancient conception, old, we are told by Jeremy Taylor in his +_Liberty of Prophesying_, as the Jews' Books. Franklin never claimed more +credit for it, as he stated in a letter to Vaughan, "than what related to +the style, and the addition of the concluding threatening and promise." +These qualifications, however, leave him quite a different measure of +credit from that of an artist who merely touches up a portrait by another +hand, as a perusal of the parable will satisfy any reader. The incident, +upon which the story turns, is the reception by Abraham into his tent of a +stranger who fails to bless God at meat. Abraham expels him from the tent +with blows for not worshipping the most high God, Creator of Heaven and +Earth; only to be rebuked by the Almighty in these impressive words: "Have +I borne with him these hundred and ninety and eight years, and nourished +him, and cloathed him, notwithstanding his rebellion against me; and +couldst not thou, who art thyself a sinner, bear with him one night?" + +Only less felicitous was Franklin's _Parable on Brotherly Love_. Simeon, +Levi and Judah are successively denied by their brother Reuben the use of +an axe which he had bought of the Ishmaelite merchants, and which he highly +prized. Therefore, they buy axes themselves from the Ishmaelites, and, as +luck will have it, while Reuben is hewing timber on the river bank, his axe +slips into the water and is lost. Reuben then applies to each of his three +brothers in turn for the use of their axes. Simeon reminds him of his +selfishness, and flatly refuses. Levi reproaches him, but adds that he will +be better than he, and will lend his axe to him. Reuben, however, is too +ashamed to accept it. Judah, seeing the grief and shame in his countenance, +anticipates the request and exclaims, "My brother, I know thy loss; but why +should it trouble thee? Lo, have I not an axe that will serve both thee +and me!" And then the lovely parable continues in these words: + + And Reuben fell on his neck, and kissed him, with + tears, saying, "Thy kindness is great, but thy goodness + in forgiving me is greater. Thou art indeed my brother, + and whilst I live, will I surely love thee." + + And Judah said, "Let us also love our other brethren: + behold, are we not all of one blood?" And Joseph saw + these things, and reported them to his father Jacob. + + And Jacob said, "Reuben did wrong, but he repented. + Simeon also did wrong; and Levi was not altogether + blameless. But the heart of Judah is princely. Judah + hath the soul of a king. His father's children shall + bow down before him, and he shall rule over his + brethren." + +The papers contributed by Franklin to the _Busy-Body_ and the _Pennsylvania +Gazette_ clearly indicate the influence of Addison and Steele. The +Ridentius and Eugenius of the second issue, Ridentius, the wight, who gave +himself an hour's diversion on the cock of a man's hat, the heels of his +shoes or on one of his unguarded expressions or personal defects, Eugenius +who preferred to make himself a public jest rather than be at the pains of +seeing his friend in confusion, pale phantoms though they be, are palpably +imitations of the Spectator and Tatler. So are the Cato of the third issue +of the _Busy-Body_, whose countenance revealed habits of virtue that made +one forget his homespun linen and seven days' beard, and the Cretico of the +same issue, the "sowre Philosopher" who commanded nothing better from his +dependents than the submissive deportment, which was like the worship paid +by the Indians to the Devil. + +Unlike these characters, the Patience of the fourth issue of the +_Busy-Body_ is a real creature of flesh and blood. She writes to the +Busy-Body for advice, informing him that she is a single woman, and keeps a +shop in the town for her livelihood, and has a certain neighbor, who is +really agreeable company enough, and has for some time been an intimate of +hers, but who, of late, has tried her out of all patience by her frequent +and long visits. She cannot do a thing in the world but this friend must +know all about it, and her friend has besides two children just big enough +to run about and do petty mischief, who accompany their mother on her +visits and put things in the shop out of sorts; so that the writer has all +the trouble and pesterment of children without the pleasure--of calling +them her own. + + Pray, Sir [concludes the unhappy Patience], tell me + what I shall do; and talk a little against such + unreasonable Visiting in your next Paper; tho' I would + not have her affronted with me for a great Deal, for + sincerely I love her and her Children, as well, I + think, as a Neighbour can, and she buys a great many + Things in a Year at my Shop. But I would beg her to + consider that she uses me unmercifully, Tho' I believe + it is only for want of Thought. But I have twenty + Things more to tell you besides all this: There is a + handsome Gentleman, that has a Mind (I don't question) + to make love to me, but he can't get the least + Opportunity to--O dear! here she comes again; I must + conclude, yours, &c. + +This letter is made the subject of some sensible comments by the +_Busy-Body_ on the importance of remembering the words of the Wise Man, +"Withdraw thy Foot from the House of thy Neighbour, lest he grow weary of +thee, and so hate thee." Later the same caution was to be conveyed in Poor +Richard's, "Fish and Visitors smell after three days." The paper ends with +the approval by the _Busy-Body_ of the Turkish practice of admonishing +guests that it is time for them to go, without actually asking them to do +so, by having a chafing dish with the grateful incense of smoking aloes +rising from it brought into the room and applied to their beards. + +Even more lifelike than Patience are Anthony Afterwit, Celia Single, Mr. +and Mrs. Careless and Alice Addertongue, the figures brought to our eye by +the _Pennsylvania Gazette_. Indeed, Addison himself would have had no +occasion to be ashamed of them, if they had been figments of his own fancy. +In his letter to the editor of the _Gazette_, Anthony Afterwit told him +that about the time that he first addressed his spouse her father let it be +known that, if she married a man of his liking, he would give two hundred +pounds with her on the day of marriage, and that he had made some fine +plans, and had even, in some measure, neglected his business on the +strength of this assurance, but that, when the old gentleman saw that the +writer was pretty well engaged, he, without assigning any reason, grew very +angry, forbade him the house and told his daughter that, if she married +him, he would not give her a farthing. However (as the father foresaw), he +stole a wedding, and took his wife to his house, where they were not in +quite so poor a condition as the couple described in the Scotch song who +had + + "Neither Pot nor Pan, + But four bare Legs together," + +for he had a house tolerably furnished for an ordinary man. His wife, +however, was strongly inclined to be a gentlewoman. His old-fashioned +looking-glass was one day broke, "_No Mortal could tell which way_," she +said, and was succeeded by a large fashionable one. This in turn led to +another table more suitable to such a glass, and the new table to some very +handsome chairs. Thus, by degrees, he found all his old furniture stored up +in the garret and everything below altered for the better. + +Then, on one pretext or another, came along a tea-table with all its +appurtenances of china and silver, a maid, a clock, and a pacing mare, for +which he paid twenty pounds. The result was that, receiving a very severe +dun, which mentioned the next court, he began in earnest to project relief. +His dear having gone over the river the preceding Monday to see a relation, +and stay a fortnight, because she could not bear the heat of the town, he +took his turn at alterations. He dismissed the maid, bag and baggage; he +sold the pacing mare, and bought a good milch cow with three pounds of the +money; he disposed of the tea-table, and put a spinning wheel in its place; +he stuffed nine empty tea canisters with flax, and with some of the money, +derived from the sale of the tea-furniture, he bought a set of knitting +needles; "for to tell you a truth, which I would have go no farther," added +honest Anthony, "_I begin to want stockings_." The stately clock he +transformed into an hour glass, by which he had gained a good round sum, +and one of the pieces of the old looking-glass, squared and framed, +supplied the place of the old one. In short, the face of things was quite +changed, and he had paid his debts and found money in his pocket. His good +dame was expected home next Friday, and, if she could conform with his new +scheme of living, they would be the happiest couple, perhaps, in the +Province, and, by the blessings of God, might soon be in thriving +circumstances. He had reserved the great glass for her, and he would allow +her, when she came in, to be taken suddenly ill with the _headache_, the +_stomachache_, the fainting fits, or whatever other disorder she might +think more proper, and she might retire to bed as soon as she pleased, but, +if he did not find her in perfect health, both of body and mind, the next +morning, away would go the aforesaid great glass, with several other +trinkets, to the _vendue_ that very day. + +That the wife of Anthony did succumb to the situation, we know, for it was +an unfortunate reference to her that caused Celia Single to write her +letter to the editor of the _Gazette_. During the morning of the preceding +Wednesday, she said, she happened to be in at Mrs. Careless', when the +husband of that lady returned from market, and showed his wife some balls +of thread which he had bought. "My Dear," says he, "I like mightily these +Stockings, which I yesterday saw Neighbour Afterwit knitting for her +Husband, of Thread of her own Spinning. I should be glad to have some such +stockins myself: I understand that your Maid Mary is a very good Knitter, +and seeing this Thread in Market, I have bought it, that the Girl may make +a Pair or two for me." Then, according to Celia, there took place in her +presence a dialogue between husband and wife so animated that, knowing as +she did that a man and his wife are apt to quarrel more violently, when +before strangers, than when by themselves, she got up and went out hastily. +She was glad, however, to understand from Mary, who came to her of an +errand in the evening, that the couple dined together pretty peaceably (the +balls of thread, that had caused the difference, being thrown into the +kitchen fire). + +The story, beginning with the reply of Mrs. Careless to the offensive +suggestion of Mr. Careless, is too good not to be reproduced in full. + + Mrs. Careless was just then at the Glass, dressing her + Head, and turning about with the Pins in her Mouth, + "Lord, Child," says she, "are you crazy? What Time has + Mary to knit? Who must do the Work, I wonder, if you + set her to Knitting?" "Perhaps, my Dear," says he, "you + have a mind to knit 'em yourself; I remember, when I + courted you, I once heard you say, that you had learn'd + to knit of your Mother." "I knit Stockins for you!" + says she; "not I truly! There are poor Women enough in + Town, that can knit; if you please, you may employ + them." "Well, but my Dear," says he, "you know _a penny + sav'd is a penny got_, A pin a day is a groat a year, + every little makes a muckle, and there is neither Sin + nor Shame in Knitting a pair of Stockins; why should + you express such a mighty Aversion to it? As to _poor_ + Women, you know we are not People of Quality, we have + no Income to maintain us but what arises from my + Labour and Industry: Methinks you should not be at all + displeas'd, if you have an Opportunity to get something + as well as myself." + + "I wonder," says she, "how you can propose such a thing + to me; did not you always tell me you would maintain me + like a Gentlewoman? If I had married Captain ----, he + would have scorn'd even to mention Knitting of + Stockins." "Prithee," says he, (a little nettled,) + "what do you tell me of your Captains? If you could + have had him, I suppose you would, or perhaps you did + not very well like him. If I did promise to maintain + you like a Gentlewoman, I suppose 'tis time enough for + that, when you know how to behave like one; Meanwhile + 'tis your Duty to help make me able. How long, d'ye + think, I can maintain you at your present Rate of + Living?" "Pray," says she, (somewhat fiercely, and + dashing the Puff into the Powder-box,) "don't use me + after this Manner, for I assure you I won't bear it. + This is the Fruit of your poison Newspapers; there + shall come no more here, I promise you." "Bless us," + says he, "what an unaccountable thing is this? Must a + Tradesman's Daughter, and the Wife of a Tradesman, + necessarily and instantly be a Gentlewoman? You had no + Portion; I am forc'd to work for a Living; you are too + great to do the like; there's the Door, go and live + upon your Estate, if you can find it; in short, I don't + desire to be troubled w'ye." + +And then it was that Celia Single gathered up her skirts and left. + +The letter from Alice Addertongue to the editor of the _Gazette_ is exactly +in the manner of the _School for Scandal_, written many years later. She is +a young girl of about thirty-five, she says, and lives at present with her +mother. Like the Emperor, who, if a day passed over his head, during which +he had conferred no benefit on any man, was in the habit of saying, _Diem +perdidi_, _I have lost a Day_, she would make use of the same expression, +were it possible for a day to pass over her head, during which she had +failed to scandalize someone; a misfortune, thanks be praised, that had not +befallen her these dozen years. + + My mother, good Woman, and I [the forked tongue plays + precisely as it might have done in the mouth of Lady + Sneerwell] have heretofore differ'd upon this Account. + She argu'd, that Scandal spoilt all good Conversation; + and I insisted, that without it there would be no such + Thing. Our Disputes once rose so high, that we parted + Tea-Tables, and I concluded to entertain my + Acquaintance in the Kitchin. The first Day of this + Separation we both drank Tea at the same Time, but she + with her Visitors in the Parlor. She would not hear of + the least Objection to anyone's Character, but began a + new sort of Discourse in some queer philosophical + Manner as this; "I am mightily pleas'd sometimes," says + she, "when I observe and consider, that the World is + not so bad as People out of humour imagine it to be. + There is something amiable, some good Quality or other, + in everybody. If we were only to speak of People that + are least respected, there is such a one is very + dutiful to her Father, and methinks has a fine Set of + Teeth; such a one is very respectful to her Husband; + such a one is very kind to her poor Neighbours, and + besides has a very handsome Shape; such a one is always + ready to serve a Friend, and in my opinion there is not + a Woman in Town that has a more agreable Air and Gait." + This fine kind of Talk, which lasted near half an Hour, + she concluded by saying, "I do not doubt but everyone + of you have made the like Observations, and I should be + glad to have the Conversation continu'd upon this + Subject." Just at that Juncture I peep'd in at the + Door, and never in my Life before saw such a Set of + simple vacant Countenances. They looked somehow neither + glad, nor sorry, nor angry, nor pleas'd, nor + indifferent, nor attentive; but (excuse the Simile) + like so many blue wooden images of Rie Doe. I in the + Kitchin had already begun a ridiculous Story of Mr. + ----'s Intrigue with his Maid, and his Wife's Behaviour + upon the Discovery; at some Passages we laugh'd + heartily, and one of the gravest of Mama's Company, + without making any Answer to her Discourse, got up _to + go and see what the Girls were so merry about_: She was + follow'd by a Second, and shortly by a Third, till at + last the old Gentlewoman found herself quite alone, + and, being convinc'd that her Project was + impracticable, came herself and finish'd her Tea with + us; ever since which _Saul also has been among the + Prophets_, and our Disputes lie dormant. + +It was in the _Pennsylvania Gazette_, too, that Franklin published his +"Dialogue between Philocles and Horatio," in which Philocles twice meets +Horatio in the fields, and, in accents full of persuasive blandishment, +diverts his feet from the pursuit of sensual pleasure into paths of +contentment and peace. In the first dialogue, the moralist takes as his +thesis the proposition that self-denial is not only the most reasonable but +the most pleasant thing in the world. In the second, he holds up to Horatio +the constant and durable happiness, so unlike the chequered, fleeting +pleasures of Sense, which springs from acts of humanity, friendship, +generosity and benevolence. One maxim in the last dialogue is worth many of +the sayings of Poor Richard: "The Foundation of all Virtue and Happiness is +Thinking rightly." + +Other papers from the hand of Franklin that appeared in the _Gazette_ were +_A Witch Trial at Mount Holly_, _An Apology for Printers_, _A Meditation on +a Quart Mugg_, _Shavers and Trimmers_, and _Exporting of Felons to the +Colonies_. + +In the "Witch Trial at Mount Holly," Franklin describes in a highly +humorous manner the results of the ordeals to which a man and a woman, +accused by a man and a woman of witchcraft, were subjected. One of these +ordeals consisted in weighing the accused in scales against a Bible for the +purpose of seeing whether it would prove too heavy for them. + + Then [the facetious narrative relates] came out of the + House a grave, tall Man carrying the Holy Writ before + the supposed Wizard etc., (as solemely as the + Sword-Bearer of London before the Lord Mayor) the + Wizard was first put in the Scale, and over him was + read a Chapter out of the Books of Moses, and then the + Bible was put in the other Scale, (which, being kept + down before) was immediately let go; but, to the great + surprize of the Spectators, Flesh and Bones came down + plump, and outweighed that great good Book by + abundance. After the same Manner the others were + served, and their Lumps of Mortality severally were too + heavy for Moses and all the Prophets and Apostles. + +This ordeal was followed by the Trial by Water. Both accused and accusers +were stripped, except that the women were not deprived of their shifts, +bound hand and foot and let down into the water by ropes from the side of a +barge. The rest is thus told: + + The accused man being thin and spare with some + Difficulty began to sink at last; but the rest, every + one of them, swam very light upon the Water. A Sailor + in the Flat jump'd out upon the Back of the Man accused + thinking to drive him down to the Bottom; but the + Person bound, without any Help, came up some time + before the other. The Woman Accuser being told that she + did not sink, would be duck'd a second Time; when she + swam again as light as before. Upon which she declared, + That she believed the Accused had bewitched her to make + her so light, and that she would be duck'd again a + Hundred Times but she would duck the Devil out of her. + The Accused Man, being surpriz'd at his own swimming, + was not so confident of his Innocence as before, but + said, "If I am a Witch, it is more than I know." The + more thinking Part of the Spectators were of Opinion + that any Person so bound and placed in the Water + (unless they were mere Skin and Bones) would swim, till + their breath was gone, and their Lungs fill'd with + Water. But it being the general Belief of the Populace + that the Women's Shifts and the Garters with which they + were bound help'd to support them, it is said they are + to be tried again the next Warm Weather, naked. + +In the "Apology for Printers," Franklin defends his guild with much point +and good sense, in terms modern enough to be fully applicable to +newspapers at the present time. It was inspired by the resentment which his +advertisement relating to Sea Hens and Black Gowns excited, and, though +written in a half-humorous style, states the difficulties of an editor, +between his duty to publish everything, and the certainty of private +resentment, if he does, with about as much felicity of presentation as they +are ever likely to be stated. Among the various solid reasons, set forth in +formal numerical sequence, that he gave, by way of mitigation, for +publishing the advertisement, he mentioned these, too: + +"6. That I got Five Shillings by it. + +"7. That none who are angry with me would have given me so much to let it +alone." + +In answer to the accusation that printers sometimes printed vicious or +silly things not worth reading, he charged the fact up to the vicious taste +of the public itself. He had known, he said, a very numerous impression of +Robin Hood's songs to go off in the Province at 2 s. per book in less than +a twelvemonth, when a small quantity of David's Psalms (an excellent +version) had lain upon his hands about twice that long. + + * * * * * + +In the "Meditation on a Quart Mugg" Franklin begins with the exclamation, +"WRETCHED, miserable, and unhappy Mug!" and traces with mock sympathy all +the misfortunes of its ignoble and squalid career from the time that it is +first forced into the company of boisterous sots, who lay all their +nonsense, noise, profane swearing, cursing and quarrelling on it, though it +speaks not a word, until the inevitable hour when it is broken into pieces, +and finds its way for the most part back to Mother Earth. The paper is only +a trifle, but a trifle fashioned with no little skill to hit the fancy of +an age that, as Franklin's "Drunkard's Vocabulary" (also published in the +_Gazette_) shows, had innumerable cant terms for the condition for which +the mug was held to such an unjust responsibility. + +The paper on "Shavers and Trimmers" is not so happy and well sustained, but +its classifications of the different species of persons, answering these +descriptions, is not without humor. One sentence in it, when Franklin +speaks of the species of Shavers and Trimmers, who "cover (what is called +by an eminent Preacher) _their poor Dust_ in tinsel Cloaths and gaudy +Plumes of Feathers," reads like a paragraph in the _Courant_. "A competent +Share of religious Horror thrown into the Countenance," he says, "with +proper Distortions of the Face, and the Addition of a lank Head of Hair, or +a long Wig and Band, commands a most profound Respect to Insolence and +Ignorance." + +The paper on the "Exporting of Felons to the Colonies" is marked by the +grim, biting irony of Swift, but was no severer than the practice of +setting British criminals at large in America deserved. Such tender +parental concern, Franklin said, called aloud for due returns of gratitude +and duty, and he suggested that these returns should assume the form of +rattlesnakes, "Felons-convict from the Beginning of the World." In the +spring of the year, when they first crept out of their holes, they were +feeble, heavy, slow and easily taken, and, if a small bounty was allowed +per head, some thousands might be collected annually, and transported to +Britain. There he proposed that they should be carefully distributed in St. +James' Park, in the Spring Gardens, and other pleasure resorts about +London, and in the gardens of all the nobility and gentry throughout the +nation, but particularly in the gardens of the Prime Ministers, the Lords +of Trade and Members of Parliament; for to them they were most particularly +obliged. Such a paper, it is needless to say, was better calculated for its +purpose than a thousand appeals of the ordinary type would have been. + +The speech of Polly Baker is one of the most famous of Franklin's _jeux +d'esprit_. The introduction to it states that it was delivered when she +was prosecuted for the fifth time for having a bastard child, and with such +effect that the court decided not to punish her; indeed with such effect +that one of her judges even married her the next day, and in time had +fifteen children by her. The perfectly ingenuous manner in which the +traverser refuses to admit that she has committed any offence whatever and +insists that, in default of honorable suitors, she has but dutifully, +though irregularly, complied with the first and great command of nature and +nature's God--increase and multiply--is undoubtedly, coarse as it is, a +stroke of art, but the performance is too gross for modern scruples. + +More decorous reading is the fictitious discourse by a Spanish Jesuit on +the "Meanes of disposing the Enemie to Peace," which Franklin, during his +first mission to England, contributed to the _London Chronicle_ for the +purpose of rousing the English people to a sense of the artifices, that +were being employed by the French to build up a party in England for peace +at any price. In the introduction to the discourse, it is stated that it +was taken from a book containing a number of discourses, addressed by the +Jesuit to the King of Spain in 1629, and that nothing was needed to render +it _apropos_ to the existing situation of England except the substitution +of France for Spain. The discourse points out in detail, with shrewd +insight into all the selfish and timid impulses, by which a society is +corrupted or enervated, when cunningly practised upon, the different +classes in the country of the enemy that could be manipulated in one way or +another until no sound but that of Peace, Peace, Peace would be heard from +any quarter. + +_The Craven Street Gazette_, written in mock court language, and replete +with the subtle suggestions of household intimacy, is one of the most +exquisite triumphs of Franklin's wit and fancy. + + This morning [it begins], Queen Margaret, accompanied + by her first maid of honour, Miss Franklin, (Sally + Franklin) set out for Rochester. Immediately on their + departure, the whole street was in tears--from a heavy + shower of rain. It is whispered, that the new family + administration which took place on her Majesty's + departure, promises, like all other new + administrations, to govern much better than the old + one. + + We hear, that the great person (so called from his + enormous size), of a certain family in a certain + street, is grievously affected at the late changes, and + could hardly be comforted this morning, though the new + ministry promised him a roasted shoulder of mutton and + potatoes for his dinner. + + It is said, that the same great person intended to pay + his respects to another great personage this day, at + St. James's, it being coronation-day; hoping thereby a + little to amuse his grief; but was prevented by an + accident, Queen Margaret, or her maid of honour having + carried off the key of the drawers, so that the lady of + the bed-chamber could not come at a laced shirt for his + Highness. Great clamours were made on this occasion + against her Majesty. + +And so the _Gazette_ goes on, gay and graceful as the play of sunshine on +the surface of a dimpled sea, from incident to incident that took place +during the absence of Queen Margaret (Mrs. Stevenson) and Miss Franklin, +investing each with a ceremonious dignity and importance that never descend +to buffoonery. + +These are some of the occurrences chronicled as taking place on the first +Sunday after the departure of the Queen. Walking up and down in his room we +might observe was one of Franklin's ways of taking exercise. + + Lord and Lady Hewson walked after dinner to Kensington, + to pay their duty to the Dowager, and Dr. Fatsides made + four hundred and sixty-nine turns in his dining-room, + as the exact distance of a visit to the lovely Lady + Barwell, whom he did not find at home; so there was no + struggle for and against a kiss, and he sat down to + dream in the easy-chair that he had it without any + trouble. + +And these are some of the observations made under the date of the +succeeding Tuesday. + + It is remark'd, that the Skies have wept every Day in + Craven Street, the Absence of the Queen. + + The Publick may be assured that this Morning a certain + _great_ Personage was asked very complaisantly by the + Mistress of the Household, if he would chuse to have + the Blade-Bone of Saturday's Mutton that had been kept + for his Dinner to-day _broil'd_ or _cold_. _He answer'd + gravely, If there is any Flesh on it, it may be + broil'd; if not, it may as well be cold._ Orders were + accordingly given for Broiling it. But when it came to + Table, there was indeed so very little Flesh, or rather + none, (Puss having din'd on it yesterday after + Nanny)[57] that if our new Administration had been as + good Oeconomists as they would be thought, the Expence + of Broiling might well have been saved to the Publick, + and carried to the Sinking Fund. It is assured the + _great_ Person bears all with infinite Patience. But + the Nation is astonish'd at the insolent Presumption, + that dares treat so much Mildness in so cruel a manner! + +Under the same date is made the announcement that at six o'clock, that +afternoon, news had come by the post that her Majesty arrived safely at +Rochester on Saturday night. "The Bells," the _Gazette_ adds, "immediately +rang--for Candles to illuminate the Parlour, the Court went into Cribbidge, +and the Evening concluded with every other Demonstration of Joy." This is +followed by a letter to the _Gazette_ from a person signing himself +"Indignation," who says that he makes no doubt of the truth of the +statement that a certain great person is half-starved on the blade-bone of +a sheep by a set of the most careless, worthless, thoughtless, +inconsiderate, corrupt, ignorant, blundering, foolish, crafty & knavish +ministers that ever got into a house and pretended to govern a family and +provide a dinner. "Alas for the poor old England of Craven Street!" this +correspondent exclaims, "If they continue in Power another Week, the Nation +will be ruined. Undone, totally undone, if I and my Friends are not +appointed to succeed them." + +This letter is accompanied by another signed, "A Hater of Scandal," which +takes "Indignation" to task, and declares that the writer believes that, +even if the Angel Gabriel would condescend to be their minister, and +provide their dinners, he would scarcely escape newspaper defamation from a +gang of hungry, ever-restless, discontented and malicious scribblers. It +was a piece of justice, he declared, that the publisher of the _Gazette_ +owed to their righteous administration to undeceive the public on this +occasion by assuring them of the fact, which is that there was provided and +actually smoking on the table under his royal nose at the same instant as +the blade-bone as fine a piece of ribs of beef roasted as ever knife was +put into, with potatoes, horse-radish, pickled walnuts &c. which his +Highness might have eaten, if so he had pleased to do. + +Along with the political intelligence and the letters the _Gazette_ also +contains these notices and stock quotations: + + MARRIAGES, none since our last--but Puss begins to go a + Courting. + + DEATHS, In the back Closet and elsewhere, many poor + Mice. + + STOCKS Biscuit--very low. Buckwheat & Indian Meal--both + sour. Tea, lowering daily--in the Canister. Wine, shut. + +The _Petition of the Letter Z_ was a humorous offshoot of Franklin's +Reformed Alphabet. In a formal complaint after the manner of a bill in +chancery, to the worshipful Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, Censor-General, Z +complains that his claims to respect are as good as those of the other +letters of the Alphabet, but that he had not only been placed at its tail, +when he had as much right as any of his companions to be at its head, but +by the injustice of his enemies had been totally excluded from the word +WISE and his place filled by a little hissing, crooked, serpentine, +venomous letter, called S, though it must be evident to his worship and to +all the world that W, I, S, E does not spell _Wize_ but _Wise_. The +petition ends with the prayer that, in consideration of his long-suffering +and patience, the petitioner may be placed at the head of the Alphabet, and +that S may be turned out of the word _wise_, and the Petitioner employed +instead of him. + +Z did not make out his case, for at the foot of the petition is appended +this order: "Mr. Bickerstaff, having examined the allegations of the above +petition, judges and determines, that Z be admonished to be content with +his station, forbear reflections upon his brother letters, and remember his +own small usefulness, and the little occasion there is for him in the +Republic of Letters, since S whom he so despises can so well serve instead +of him." + +Some of the liveliest of the lighter papers of Franklin were written during +the course of his French Mission. His inimitable _Journey to the Elysian +Fields_ and _Conte_ have already received our attention in an earlier +chapter. Among the others was _The Sale of the Hessians_, _The Supplement +to the Boston Independent Chronicle_, _The Ephemera_, _The Whistle_, his +letter to the Abbé de la Roche, communicating to him the _petite chanson à +boire_ that he had written forty years before, his letter to the Abbé +Morellet on wine, the _Dialogue between him and the Gout_, _The Handsome +and Deformed Leg_ and _The Economical Project_. If there was nothing else +to support the claim of Franklin to the authorship of _The Sale of the +Hessians_, the difficulty of abridging it would be one proof. Its humor is +as trenchant as that of Frederick the Great in levying the same toll upon +these hirelings, when passing through his dominions on their way to +America, pursuant to the mercenary engagements between their German masters +and George III., as that levied by him upon other cattle. The paper is +thrown into the form of a letter from the Count De Schaumbergh to the Baron +Hohendorf, commanding the Hessian troops in America. It begins as follows: + + MONSIEUR DE BARON:--On my return from Naples, I + received at Rome your letter of the 27th December of + last year. I have learned with unspeakable pleasure the + courage our troops exhibited at Trenton, and you cannot + imagine my joy on being told that of the 1,950 Hessians + engaged in the fight, but 345 escaped. There were just + 1,605 men killed, and I can not sufficiently commend + your prudence in sending an exact list of the dead to + my minister in London. This precaution was the more + necessary, as the report sent to the English Ministry + does not give but 1,455 dead. This would make 483,450 + florins instead of 643,500 which I am entitled to + demand under our convention. You will comprehend the + prejudice which such an error would work in my + finances, and I do not doubt you will take the + necessary pains to prove that Lord North's list is + false and yours correct. + +This is another paragraph: + + I am about to send to you some new recruits. Don't + economize them. Remember glory before all things. Glory + is true wealth. There is nothing degrades the soldier + like the love of money. He must care only for honour + and reputation, but this reputation must be acquired in + the midst of dangers. A battle gained without costing + the conqueror any blood is an inglorious success, while + the conquered cover themselves with glory by perishing + with their arms in their hands. Do you remember that of + the 300 Lacedaemonians who defended the defile of + Thermopylae, not one returned? How happy should I be + could I say the same of my brave Hessians! + + It is true that their King, Leonidas, perished with + them: but things have changed, and it is no longer the + custom for princes of the empire to go and fight in + America for a cause with which they have no concern. + +The Baron is further commended for sending back to Europe that Dr. Crumerus +who was so successful in curing dysentery, and is told that it is better +that the Hessians should burst in their barracks than fly in a battle, and +tarnish the glory of the Count's arms. + + Besides [the Count continues], you know that they pay + me as killed for all who die from disease, and I don't + get a farthing for runaways. My trip to Italy, which + has cost me enormously, makes it desirable that there + should be a great mortality among them. You will + therefore promise promotion to all who expose + themselves; you will exhort them to seek glory in the + midst of dangers; you will say to Major Maundorff that + I am not at all content with his saving the 345 men who + escaped the massacre of Trenton. Through the whole + campaign he has not had ten men killed in consequence + of his orders. Finally, let it be your principal object + to prolong the war and avoid a decisive engagement on + either side, for I have made arrangements for a grand + Italian opera, and I do not wish to be obliged to give + it up. Meantime I pray God, my dear Baron de Hohendorf, + to have you in his holy and gracious keeping. + +The _Supplement to the Boston Independent Chronicle_ is distinguished by +the same sort of cool, dry mocking verisimilitude. Captain Gerrish, of the +New England Militia, is supposed to write a letter in which he says that +the members of a recent expedition against the Indians were struck with +horror to find among the packages of peltry captured by them eight large +ones containing scalps of their unhappy country-folks taken in the last +three years by the Seneca Indians from the heads of inhabitants of the +frontiers of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia, and sent by +them as a present to Colonel Haldimand, the Governor of Canada; to be +forwarded by him to England. The scalps, Captain Gerrish asserts, were +accompanied by a curious letter to the Governor from one, James Craufurd. +Then is set forth this letter which describes with the minuteness of a +mercantile invoice the contents of each of the eight packages of scalps, +some of Congress soldiers, some of farmers surprised in their houses at +night, some of farmers killed in their houses by day, some of farmers +killed in the fields, some of women, some of boys, some of girls and some +of little infants ripped from the womb. The contents of several of the +packages are described as mixed lots. The letter also fully explains the +Indian triumphal marks painted upon the different scalps, which were all +cured, dried and stretched like the pelts of the otter or beaver on hoops. +The black circle denoted that the victim had perished at night, the little +red foot that he had died in defence of his life and family, the little +yellow flame that he had been tortured at the stake. The hair braided in +the Indian fashion meant that the victim was a mother, other tokens that +the victim was a boy or a girl. A band fixed to the hoop of one of the +scalps signified that the head to which it had been attached was that of a +rebel clergyman. Many gruesome tokens are explained in the same systematic +and businesslike manner. Along with several other passages from a speech of +Conejogatchie in Council, the letter also communicates one in which the +speaker declares that his people wished the scalps to be sent across the +water to the great King that he might regard them and be refreshed. In +concluding his own letter, Captain Gerrish states that Lieutenant +Fitzgerald would have undertaken to convey the scalps to England and to +hang them all up some dark night on the trees in St. James' Park, where +they could be seen from the King and Queen's Palaces in the morning. But +this proposal, the _Chronicle_ says, was not approved in Boston. It was +proposed instead to make the scalps up in decent little packets, and to +seal and direct them; one to the King containing a sample of every kind +for his museum, one to the Queen, with some of women and children; the rest +to be distributed among both Houses of Parliament, and a double quantity to +be given to the Bishops. The relations of the _Chronicle_ to this +production were, of course, as purely fictitious as every other part of it. +Associated with the performance, as another publication in the _Chronicle_, +is a fictitious letter, too, from Paul Jones to Sir Joseph Yorke, the +English Ambassador to Holland, in which he defends himself with +considerable spirit from the charge of being a pirate, and reminds Sir +Joseph of the freebooting principles upon which England was waging war +against America. When he read this letter, Horace Walpole wrote to the +Countess of Ossory, "Have you seen in the papers an excellent letter of +Paul Jones to Sir Joseph Yorke? Elle nous dit bien des vérités! I doubt +poor Sir Joseph cannot answer them! Dr. Franklin himself, I should think, +was the author. It is certainly written by a first-rate pen, and not by a +common man of war." + +_The Ephemera_ was addressed to Madame Brillon, and is one of the most +justly famous of all Franklin's writings. In a letter to William +Carmichael, he states that the thought was partly taken from a little piece +of some unknown writer, which he had met with fifty years before in a +newspaper. Another proof, we might say in passing, how little disposed +Franklin was to borrow from Richard Jackson, or any one else without due +acknowledgment. + +So dependent is every part of this paper for its effect upon the whole that +to quote only a portion of it would be as futile as an effort to divide a +bubble without destroying it. These are the precise words in full of this +bewitching little production: + + You may remember, my dear friend, that when we lately + spent that happy day in the delightful garden and sweet + society of the Moulin Joly, I stopt a little in one of + our walks, and staid some time behind the company. We + had been shown numberless skeletons of a kind of little + fly, called an ephemera, whose successive generations, + we were told, were bred and expired within the day. I + happened to see a living company of them on a leaf, who + appeared to be engaged in conversation. You know I + understand all the inferior animal tongues; my too + great application to the study of them is the best + excuse I can give for the little progress I have made + in your charming language. I listened through curiosity + to the discourse of these little creatures; but as + they, in their national vivacity, spoke three or four + together, I could make but little of their + conversation. I found, however, by some broken + expressions that I heard now and then, they were + disputing warmly on the merit of two foreign musicians, + one a _cousin_, the other a _moscheto_; in which + dispute they spent their time, seemingly as regardless + of the shortness of life as if they had been sure of + living a month. Happy people! thought I, you are + certainly under a wise, just, and mild government, + since you have no public grievances to complain of, nor + any subject of contention but the perfections and + imperfections of foreign music. I turned my head from + them to an old grey-headed one, who was single on + another leaf, and talking to himself. Being amused with + his soliloquy, I put it down in writing, in hopes it + will likewise amuse her to whom I am so much indebted + for the most pleasing of all amusements, her delicious + company and heavenly harmony. + + It was [said he] the opinion of learned philosophers of + our race, who lived and flourished long before my time, + that this vast world, the Moulin Joly, could not itself + subsist more than eighteen hours; and I think there was + some foundation for that opinion, since, by the + apparent motion of the great luminary that gives life + to all nature, and which in my time has evidently + declined considerably towards the ocean at the end of + our earth, it must then finish its course, be + extinguished in the waters that surround us, and leave + the world in cold and darkness, necessarily producing + universal death and destruction. I have lived seven of + those hours, a great age, being no less than four + hundred and twenty minutes of time. How very few of us + continue so long! I have seen generations born, + flourish, and expire. My present friends are the + children and grandchildren of the friends of my youth, + who _are now_, alas, no more! And I must soon follow + them; for, by the course of nature, though still in + health, I cannot expect to live above seven or eight + minutes longer. What now avails all my toil and labor, + in amassing honey-dew on this leaf, which I cannot live + to enjoy! What the political struggles I have been + engaged in, for the good of my compatriot inhabitants + of this bush, or my philosophical studies for the + benefit of our race in general! for, in politics, what + can laws do without morals? Our present race of + ephemeræ will in a course of minutes become corrupt, + like those of other and older bushes, and consequently + as wretched. And in philosophy how small our progress! + Alas! art is long, and life is short! My friends would + comfort me with the idea of a name, they say, I shall + leave behind me; and they tell me I have lived long + enough to nature and to glory. But what will fame be to + an ephemera who no longer exists? And what will become + of all history in the eighteenth hour, when the world + itself, even the whole Moulin Joly, shall come to its + end, and be buried in universal ruin? + + To me, after all my eager pursuits, no solid pleasures + now remain, but the reflection of a long life spent in + meaning well, the sensible conversation of a few good + lady ephemeræ, and now and then a kind smile and a tune + from the ever amiable _Brillante_. + +_The Whistle_, too, was addressed to Madame Brillon and is also one of the +most celebrated of Franklin's bagatelles, but is scarcely equal, we think, +to the best of them. + +In his opinion, Franklin said, they might all draw more good from the world +than they did if they would take care not to give too much for whistles. +With this foreword, he tells his story. When a child of seven years of age, +his friends on a holiday filled his pocket with coppers, and, being charmed +with the sound of a whistle that he met by the way in the hands of another +boy, he voluntarily offered, and gave all his money for one. He then came +home, and went whistling all over the house, much pleased with his whistle, +but disturbing the entire family. But his brothers and sisters told him +that he had given four times as much for the whistle as it was worth, put +him in mind of what good things he might have bought with the rest of the +money and laughed at him so much for his folly that he cried with vexation. +The lesson, however, was of use to him, so that often, when he was tempted +to buy some unnecessary thing, he said to himself, "_Don't give too much +for the whistle_," and he saved his money. And so, when he grew up, came +into the world and observed the actions of men, he thought he met with +many, very many who gave too much for the whistle. + +He then mentions who some of these men were, the man ambitious of court +favor, the man covetous of political popularity, the miser, the slave of +pleasure, the devotee of fashion, the beautiful, sweet-tempered girl, +married to an ill-natured brute of a husband, and, after the mention of +each, comes the running comment, "This man gives too much for his whistle," +or its equivalent. + + Yet [Franklin concludes], I ought to have charity for + these unhappy people, when I consider, that, with all + this wisdom of which I am boasting, there are certain + things in the world so tempting, for example, the + apples of King John, which happily are not to be + bought; for if they were put to sale by auction, I + might very easily be led to ruin myself in the + purchase, and find that I had once more given too much + for the _whistle_. + +The reader has already had occasion to know what kind of fruit these apples +of King John were, and in whose orchard they grew. + +To realize what an indifferent poet Franklin was, and yet at the same time +what a master of prose, one has but to first read his _petite chanson à +boire_ beginning, + + "Fair Venus calls; her voice obey," + +and then his letter to the Abbé Morellet on wine. The letter was written to +repay the Abbé for some of his excellent drinking songs. + + "In vino veritas," said the sage, [is the way Franklin + begins]. Before Noah, when men had nothing but water to + drink, they could not find the truth, so they went + astray, and became abominably wicked, and were justly + exterminated by the water that they were fond of + drinking. Good man Noah, seeing that this bad drink had + been the death of all his contemporaries, contracted an + aversion to it, and God to quench his thirst, created + the vine, and revealed to him the art of making wine. + With its aid, Noah discovered many and many a truth, + and, since his time, the word "divine" has been in use, + meaning originally to discover by means of wine.... + Since that time, too, all excellent things, even + deities themselves, have been called divine or + divinities. + + Men speak of the conversion of water into wine at the + marriage of Cana as a miracle. But this change is + worked every day by the goodness of God under our eyes. + Witness the water, that falls from the skies upon our + vineyards, and then passes into the roots of the vines + to be converted into wine, a constant proof that God + loves us, and that he is pleased to see us happy. The + miracle in question was performed merely to hasten the + operation on an occasion of sudden need that made it + indispensable. + + It is true that God has also taught men how to reduce + wine to water; but what kind of water? Why + _l'eau-de-vie_. + +Franklin then begs his Christian brother to be kindly and beneficent like +God and not to spoil his good work. When he saw his table companion pour +wine into his glass he should not hasten to pour water into it. Why should +he desire to drown the truth? His neighbor was likely to know better what +suited him than he. Perhaps he does not like water, perhaps he wishes only +a few drops of it out of complaisance to the fashion of the day, perhaps +he does not wish another to see how little he puts in his glass. Water +then should be offered only to children; it was a false and annoying form +of politeness to do otherwise. This the writer told the Abbé as a man of +the world, and he would end as he had begun, like a good Christian, by +making one very important religious observation suggested by the Holy +Scriptures. While the Apostle Paul had gravely advised Timothy to put wine +into his water for his health, not one of the Apostles, nor any of the Holy +Fathers, had ever advised anyone to put water into wine. + +The "Dialogue between Franklin and the Gout" owes its value not so much to +its humor as to the knowledge that it incidentally affords us of the +personal habits of the former and his intimacy with Madame Helvétius and +Madame Brillon. Along with the reproaches and twinges of pain which evoke +repeated Ehs! and Ohs! from Franklin, as the colloquy proceeds, the Gout +contrives to communicate to us no little information on these subjects in +terms in which physiology, hygiene and gallantry are each made to do duty. +He tells Franklin that he, the Gout, very well knows that the quantity of +meat and drink proper for a man, who takes a reasonable degree of exercise, +is too much for another who never takes any. If his, Franklin's, situation +in life is a sedentary one, his amusements and recreations at least should +be active. He ought to walk or ride, or, if the weather prevents that, play +at billiards. But, instead of gaining an appetite for breakfast by salutary +exercise, he amuses himself with books, pamphlets or newspapers, which +commonly are not worth the reading. Yet he eats an inordinate breakfast, +four dishes of tea, with cream, and one or two buttered toasts, with slices +of hung beef, which the Gout fancies are not things the most easily +digested. Immediately afterwards he sits down to write at his desk or +converse with persons who apply to him on business. Thus the time passes +till one without any kind of bodily exercise. This might be pardoned out +of regard, as Franklin said, for his sedentary condition, but what is his +practice after dinner? Walking in the beautiful gardens of those friends +with whom he had dined would be the choice of men of sense. His was to be +fixed down to chess, where he was found engaged for two or three hours! +This was his perpetual recreation, which was the least eligible of any for +a sedentary man, because, instead of accelerating the motion of the fluids, +the rigid attention it required helped to retard the circulation and +obstruct internal secretions. Wrapped in the speculations of this wretched +game, he destroyed his constitution. What could be expected from such a +course of living but a body replete with stagnant humours, ready to fall a +prey to all kinds of dangerous maladies, if he, the Gout, did not +occasionally bring him relief by agitating those humors, and so purifying +or dissipating them. If it was in some nook or alley in Paris deprived of +walks that Franklin played awhile at chess after dinner, this might be +excusable, but the same taste prevailed with him in Paris, at Auteuil +Montmartre or Sanois, places where there were the finest, gardens and +walks, a pure air, beautiful women and most agreeable and instructive +conversation; all of which he might enjoy by frequenting the walks. At this +point, Franklin, after some more prolonged Ehs! and Ohs!, manages to remind +the Gout that it is not fair to say that he takes no exercise when he does +so very often in going out to dine and returning in his carriage; but this +statement the Gout brushes brusquely aside. That of all imaginable +exercises, he asserts, is the most slight and insignificant, if Franklin +alludes to the motion of a carriage suspended on springs. By observing the +degree of heat obtained by different kinds of motion, we may form an +estimate of the quantity of exercise given by each. Thus, for example, if +Franklin should turn out to walk in winter with cold feet, in an hour's +time he would be in a glow all over; if he should ride on horseback, the +same effect would scarcely be perceived by four hours' round trotting, +but, if he should loll in a carriage, such as he had mentioned, he might +travel all day, and gladly enter the last inn to warm his feet by a +fire.[58] Providence has appointed few to roll in carriages, while it has +given to all a pair of legs, which are machines infinitely more commodious +and serviceable. He should observe, when he walked, that all his weight was +alternately thrown from one leg to the other; this occasions a great +pressure upon the vessels of the foot, and repels their contents. When +relieved by the weight being thrown on the other foot, the vessels of the +first are allowed to replenish, and, by a return of this weight, this +repulsion again succeeds; thus accelerating the circulation of the blood, +with the result that the cheeks are ruddy and the health established. + + Behold [the Gout is then artfully made to say], your + fair friend at Auteuil (Madame Helvétius); a lady who + received from bounteous nature more really useful + science, than half a dozen such pretenders to + philosophy as you have been able to extract from all + your books. When she honours you with a visit, it is on + foot. She walks all hours of the day, and leaves + indolence, and its concomitant maladies, to be endured + by her horses. In this see at once the preservative of + her health and personal charms. + +Nor does the Gout go off before he is with equal art made to say a +flattering word about the Brillons. + + You know [he declares], M. Brillon's gardens, and what + fine walks they contain; you know the handsome flight + of an hundred steps, which lead from the terrace above + to the lawn below. You have been in the practice of + visiting this amiable family twice a week, after + dinner, and it is a maxim of your own, that "a man may + take as much exercise in walking a mile, up and down + stairs, as in ten on level ground." What an opportunity + was here for you to have had exercise in both these + ways. Did you embrace it, and how often? + +Franklin is bound to admit that he cannot immediately answer the question, +and the Gout answers it for him. "Not once," he says, and then goes on to +chide Franklin with the fact that, during the summer, he is in the habit of +going to M. Brillon's at six o'clock and contenting himself with the view +from his terrace, tea and the chess-board, though the charming lady, with +her lovely children and friends, are eager to walk with him, and entertain +him with their agreeable conversation. + +A little more interchange of conversation and poor Franklin in despair +asks, "What then would you have me do with my carriage?" and the Gout +replies, "Burn it if you choose; you would at least get heat out of it once +in this way." In the end, Franklin promises that, if his persecutor will +only leave him, he will never more play at chess, but will take exercise +daily, and live temperately--a promise the Gout tells him that, with a few +months of good health, "will be forgotten like the forms of last year's +clouds." + +"The Handsome and Deformed Leg" divides the world into two classes, the +happy, who fix their eyes on the bright side of things and enjoy +everything, and the unhappy, who fix their eyes on the dark side of things, +and criticise everything; and thereby render themselves completely odious. +An old philosophical friend of his, Franklin said, carefully avoided any +intimacy with the latter class of people. He had, like other philosophers, +a thermometer to show him the heat of the weather, and a barometer to mark +when it was likely to prove good or bad; but, there being no instrument +invented to discern at first sight whether a person had their unpleasant +disposition, he, for that purpose, made use of his legs, one of which was +remarkably handsome, and the other, by some accident, crooked and deformed. +If a stranger, at the first interview, regarded his ugly leg more than his +handsome one, he doubted him. If he spoke of it and took no notice of the +handsome leg, that was sufficient to determine this philosopher to have no +further acquaintance with him. + + Everybody [concludes Franklin] has not this two-legged + Instrument, but every one with a little Attention, may + observe Signs of that carping, fault-finding + Disposition, & take the same Resolution of avoiding the + Acquaintance of those infected with it. I therefore + advise those critical, querulous, discontented, unhappy + People, that if they wish to be respected and belov'd + by others, & happy in themselves they should _leave off + looking at the ugly leg_. + +"The Economical Project" is a happy combination of humor and prudential +instruction, and was written about the time when the Quinquet lamp was an +object of general public curiosity. An inquiry having been started on one +occasion in his presence, Franklin says, as to whether its brightness was +not offset by its lavish consumption of oil, he went home, and to bed, +three or four hours after midnight, with his head full of the subject. At +about six in the morning, he was awakened by a noise, and was surprised to +find his room full of light. At first, he imagined that he was surrounded +by a number of Quinquet lamps, but, on rubbing his eyes, he perceived that +the light came in at the windows, and, when he got up and looked out to see +what caused it, he saw the sun just rising above the horizon. His servant +had forgotten the preceding evening to close the shutters. Looking at his +watch, and finding that it was but six o'clock, and still thinking it +something extraordinary that the sun should rise so early, he consulted an +almanac, and ascertained that it was just the hour for sunrise on that day, +and, moreover, he learned from the almanac that the sun would rise still +earlier every day till towards the end of June. His readers, he was sure, +would be as much astonished as he was when they heard that the sun rises so +early, and especially when he assured them that it gives light as soon as +it rises. He was convinced of this. He was certain of his fact. One could +not be more certain of any fact. On repeating his observation the three +following mornings, he found always precisely the same result. + +Yet when he spoke of the matter it was to incredulous countenances. One +auditor, a learned natural philosopher, assured him that he must certainly +be mistaken as to the light coming into his room, for, it being well known +that there could be no light abroad at that hour, it followed that none +could enter from without, and that, of consequence, his open windows, +instead of letting in the light, must have only served to let out the +darkness. This philosopher, Franklin confessed, puzzled him a little, but +subsequent observation confirmed him in his first opinion. On the strength +of these facts, Franklin enters upon a series of elaborate calculations to +demonstrate that, between the 20th of March and 20th of September, the +Parisians, because of their habit of preferring candlelight in the evening +to sunlight in the morning, had consumed sixty-four millions and fifty +thousand pounds of candles, which, at an average price of thirty sols per +pound, made ninety-six millions and seventy-five thousand livres tournois. +An immense sum! that the City of Paris might save every year by the economy +of using sunshine instead of candles; to say nothing of the period of the +year during which the days are shorter. This computation is succeeded by a +number of suggestions as to the different means by which such of the +Parisians as did not amend their hours upon learning from this paper that +it is daylight when the sun rises could be induced to reform their habits. + +For his discovery, Franklin further said that he demanded neither place, +pension, exclusive privilege nor any other reward whatever. He was looking +only to the honor of it. He would not deny, when he was assailed by little, +envious minds, that the ancients knew that the sun rises at certain hours. +They too possibly had almanacs, but it does not follow that they knew that +it gives light as soon as it rises. That was what he claimed as his +discovery. It was certainly unknown to the moderns, at least to the +Parisians; which to prove he need use but one plain, simple argument. It +was impossible that a people as well-instructed, judicious and prudent as +any in the world, all professing to be lovers of economy, and subject to +onerous taxation, should have lived so long by the smoky, unwholesome and +enormously expensive light of candles, if they had really known that they +might have as much pure light of the sun for nothing. + +_A Letter from China_ in which a sailor, who had passed some time in that +country, is made to narrate in a simple, bald way what he saw and +experienced while there, is worth reading, if only because of the evidence +that it furnishes that almost every trifle from Franklin's pen has a +certain literary quality. One sentence in the letter at any rate possesses +the true Franklin flavor; that in which the wanderer states that in China +stealing, robbing and housebreaking are punished severely, but that +cheating is free there in everything, as cheating in horses is among +gentlemen in England. + +Other humorous or satirical compositions from the hand of Franklin belong +to the period between his return from the French mission and his death. + +His letter to the _Pennsylvania Gazette_ on the _Abuse of the Press_, +deprecates in a familiar and jocular way the scurrilous license which +marked the newspaper controversies of the time. After recalling insulting +epithets heaped upon other public servants, he mentions that he, too, the +unanimous choice as President of the Council and Assembly of Pennsylvania, +had been denounced as "_An old Rogue_," who had given his assent to the +Federal Constitution merely to avoid the refunding of money that he had +purloined from the United States. + + There is--indeed [the letter ends], a good deal of + manifest _Inconsistency_ in all this, and yet a + Stranger, seeing it in your own Prints, tho' he does + not believe it all, may probably believe enough of it + to conclude, that Pennsylvania is peopled by a Set of + the most unprincipled, wicked, rascally and quarrelsome + Scoundrels upon the Face of the Globe. I have + sometimes, indeed, suspected that those Papers are the + Manufacture of foreign Enemies among you, who write + with a view of disgracing your Country, and making you + appear contemptible and detestable all the World over; + but then I wonder at the Indiscretion of your Printers + in publishing such Writings! There is, however, one of + your _Inconsistencies_ that consoles me a little, which + is, that tho' _living_, you give one another the + characters of Devils; _dead_, you are all Angels! It is + delightful, when any of you die, to read what good + Husbands, good Fathers, good Friends, good Citizens, + and good Christians you were, concluding with a Scrap + of Poetry that places you, with certainty, every one in + Heaven. So that I think Pennsylvania a good country _to + dye in_, though a very bad one to _live in_. + +The _Comparison of the Conduct of the Ancient Jews and of the +Anti-Federalists in the United States of America_ belongs to the same +category as _Plain Truth_ rather than to the class of writings which +Franklin termed "Bagatelles." The parallel, however, between the jealousy, +worked upon by insidious men, pretending public good, but with nothing +really in view except private interest, which led the Israelites to oppose +the establishment of the New Constitution, after the flight from Egypt, and +the hostility of the Anti-Federalists to the work of the Convention of +1787, is pursued with such cleverness as to lift it out of the province of +the ordinary newspaper essay. There is an unwonted strain of solemnity in +its last sentences. + + To conclude [Franklin declares], I beg I may not be + understood to infer, that our General Convention was + divinely inspired, when it form'd the new federal + Constitution, merely because that Constitution has been + unreasonably and vehemently opposed; yet I must own I + have so much Faith in the general Government of the + world by _Providence_, that I can hardly conceive a + Transaction of such momentous Importance to the Welfare + of Millions now existing, and to exist in the Posterity + of a great Nation, should be suffered to pass without + being in some degree influenc'd, guided, and governed + by that omnipotent, omnipresent and beneficent Ruler, + in whom all inferior Spirits live, and move, and have + their Being. + +Of the _Account of the Supremest Court of Judicature in Pennsylvania, viz., +the Court of the Press_, in which Franklin suggested that formal cognizance +should be taken of the Cudgel as well as of the Liberty of the Press, we +have already said enough. + +The pretended speech of Sidi Mehemet Ibrahim, a member of the Divan of +Algiers against the Petition of the Erika or Purists, asking that Piracy +and Slavery be abolished, was written by him on the eve of his death, and +is one of his best satirical thrusts. It was a parody on a speech that had +been lately delivered in Congress in defence of negro slavery by Mr. +Jackson of Georgia, and its wit consists in the art with which it +appositely urges in justification of the Algerian practice of plundering +and enslaving Christians all the considerations urged by Jackson in his +plea for African slavery. In his letter, conveying Sidi's speech to the +_Federal Gazette_, Franklin states that it might be found in Martin's +Account of the former's consulship, anno 1687, and we are told that this +statement caused many persons to apply to bookstores and libraries for +Martin's supposed work. Then, as now, there could be no better means for +determining how matter-of-fact a person was than to test his sense of humor +with one of Franklin's facetious cheats. + +The exact time at which the _Petition of the Left Hand to those who have +the Superintendency of Education_ was written is unknown. Its _motif_ is +not unlike that of the _Petition of the Letter Z_. It complains that from +infancy the petitioner had been led to consider her sister as a being of +more elevated rank. She had been suffered to grow up without the least +instruction while nothing was spared in the education of the latter, who +had had masters to teach her writing, drawing, music and other +accomplishments. If by chance the Petitioner touched a pencil, a pen or a +needle, she was bitterly rebuked, and more than once had been beaten for +being awkward and wanting a graceful manner. + + But conceive not Sirs [says the left hand further], + that my complaints are instigated merely by vanity. No; + my uneasiness is occasioned by an object much more + serious. It is the practice in our family, that the + whole business of providing for its subsistence falls + upon my sister and myself. If any indisposition should + attack my sister,--and I mention it in confidence upon + this occasion, that she is subject to the gout, the + rheumatism, and cramp, without making mention of other + accidents,--what would be the fate of our poor family? + Must not the regret of our parents be excessive, at + having placed so great a difference between sisters who + are so perfectly equal? Alas! we must perish from + distress; for it would not be in my power even to + scrawl a suppliant petition for relief, having been + obliged to employ the hand of another in transcribing + the request which I have now the honour to prefer to + you. + +One of the essays of Franklin is an essay which he termed a "bagatelle," +but which is of a different cast from most of his papers bearing that +designation. This is the essay on the _Morals of Chess_. As a mere literary +production, it possesses remarkable merit, but it is more valuable still +for the singular union of wisdom and benevolence found in all of the +writer's precepts relating to the conduct of life. It is only upon the +contracted face of an ordinary chess-board that the sagacious reflections +and salutary counsels of this paper are based, but many of them are quite +extensive enough in their application to be suitable for the morals of the +wider chess-board on which men and women themselves are the pawns, and the +universal currents of human nature and human existence the players. By +playing at chess, Franklin thought, we may learn foresight, circumspection, +caution and hopefulness. When playing it, if the agreement is that the +rules of the game shall be strictly observed, they should be strictly +observed by both parties. If the agreement is that they shall not be +strictly observed, one party should claim no indulgence for himself that he +is not willing to grant to his adversary. No false move should ever be made +by a player to extricate himself from a difficulty or to gain an advantage. +There can be no pleasure in playing with a person once detected in such an +unfair practice. If your adversary is long in playing, you should not hurry +him, or express any uneasiness at his delay, nor sing, nor whistle, nor +look at your watch, nor take up a book to read, nor tap with your feet on +the floor, or with your fingers on the table, nor do anything that may +disturb his attention. For all these things displease, and they do not show +your skill in playing but your craftiness or your rudeness. + + * * * * * + +You should not endeavor to amuse and deceive your adversary by pretending +to have made bad moves in order to render him confident and careless and +inattentive to your schemes. This is fraud and deceit, not skill. If you +gain the victory, you should not give way to exultation or insult, nor show +too much pleasure. On the contrary, you should endeavor to console your +adversary, and soothe his wounded pride by every sort of civil expression +that may be used with truth, such as, "You understand the game better than +I, but you are a little inattentive," or "You play too fast," or "You had +the best of the game, but something happened to divert your thoughts, and +that turned it in my favour." If you are simply a spectator, you should +observe the most perfect silence; for, if you give advice, you offend both +parties, him, against whom you give it, because it may cause the loss of +his game, him, in whose favour you give it, because though it be good, and +he follows it, he loses the pleasure he might have had, if you had +permitted him to think until it had occurred to himself. + +And thus this essay, so full of wholesome, kind advice from a counsellor, +who loved men none the less because he knew all their failings and foibles +as well as virtues, continues a little longer, until the reader, already +won over to its perfect rectitude of sentiment and purpose, entirely +forgets how obvious are all the truisms of its stating that he has so often +offended. The measure of self-abnegation, suggested by the conclusion of +the essay, is, we fear, rather too exacting for the tug of chess-board +selfishness upon the weaker side of human nature. If it is agreed that the +rules of the game are not to be rigorously enforced, then, says Franklin, +moderate your desire of victory over your adversary, and be pleased with +one over yourself. Do not snatch eagerly at every advantage offered by his +unskilfulness or inattention, but point out to him kindly that by such a +move he places or leaves a piece in danger and unsupported; or that by +another he will put his king in a perilous situation &c. "By this generous +civility (so opposite to the unfairness above forbidden) you may, indeed, +happen to lose the game to your opponent," the close of the essay declares, +"but you will win what is better, his esteem, his respect, and his +affection, together with the silent approbation and goodwill of impartial +spectators." + +We shall not linger upon the letters of Franklin. The substance of them has +already been worked into this book too freely for that. It is sufficient to +say that they are among the very best in the English language. It would be +idle to compare them with those of Gray, Horace Walpole, Cowper, Byron or +Fitzgerald, the acknowledged masters of that form of composition. Franklin +was not a conscious man of letters at all, and is not to be judged by such +academic standards. If he was, we might say that Cowper aerated with a +little of Walpole most nearly, though, after all, but remotely, suggests a +true conception of what Franklin was as a letter-writer. Few men were ever +saner than Cowper was during his really lucid intervals; but then Cowper +was not a man of business, a statesman or a philosopher, and the elixir of +Walpole's gaiety differs from that of Franklin's as a stimulant of the +wine-shop differs from fresh air and sunshine. The official and +semi-official letters of Franklin contain some of the most solid and +sagacious of his reflections and observations on political topics. His +familiar letters to his kinsfolk and friends often run out into thoughts +upon the management of our individual lives and our relations to the +visible and invisible universe which are likely to be a part of the +currency of human wisdom as long as human society lasts. And almost all of +his known letters have value enough to make us feel, when still another of +the thousands written by him happens to be reclaimed from loss, as Reuben +in his parable might have felt, if he had recovered his precious axe. + +Among the cleverest of his letters was his familiar one to his daughter on +the Order of the Cincinnati. If his advice had been asked, he said, he +perhaps would not have objected to their wearing their ribbon and badge +themselves, if they derived pleasure from such trivial things, but he +certainly should have objected to the idea of making the honor hereditary. +And this was the amusing and original way in which he presented his views +on the subject: + + For Honour, worthily obtain'd (as for Example that of + our Officers), is in its Nature a _personal_ Thing, and + incommunicable to any but those who had some Share in + obtaining it. Thus among the Chinese, the most ancient, + and from long Experience the wisest of Nations, honour + does not _descend_, but _ascends_. If a man from his + Learning, his Wisdom, or his Valour, is promoted by the + Emperor to the Rank of Mandarin, his Parents are + immediately entitled to all the same Ceremonies of + Respect from the People, that are establish'd as due to + the Mandarin himself; on the supposition that it must + have been owing to the Education, Instruction, and good + Example afforded him by his Parents, that he was + rendered capable of serving the Publick. + + This _ascending_ Honour is therefore useful to the + State, as it encourages Parents to give their Children + a good and virtuous Education. But the _descending + Honour_, to Posterity who could have no Share in + obtaining it, is not only groundless and absurd, but + often hurtful to that Posterity, since it is apt to + make them proud, disdaining to be employ'd in useful + Arts, and thence falling into Poverty, and all the + Meannesses, Servility, and Wretchedness attending it; + which is the present case with much of what is called + the _Noblesse_ in Europe. Or if to keep up the Dignity + of the Family, Estates are entailed entire on the + Eldest male heir, another Pest to Industry and + Improvement of the Country is introduc'd, which will be + followed by all the odious mixture of pride and + Beggary, and idleness, that have half depopulated [and + _decultivated_] Spain; occasioning continual Extinction + of Families by the Discouragements of Marriage [and + neglect in the improvement of estates]. + + I wish, therefore, that the Cincinnati, if they must go + on with their Project, would direct the Badges of their + Order to be worn by their Parents, instead of handing + them down to their Children. It would be a good + Precedent, and might have good Effects. It would also + be a kind of Obedience to the Fourth Commandment, in + which God enjoins us to honour our Father and Mother, + but has nowhere directed us to honour our Children. And + certainly no mode of honouring those immediate Authors + of our Being can be more effectual, than that of doing + praiseworthy Actions, which reflect Honour on those who + gave us our Education; or more becoming, than that of + manifesting, by some public Expression or Token, that + it is to their Instruction and Example we ascribe the + Merit of those Actions. + + But the Absurdity of _descending Honours_ is not a mere + Matter of philosophical Opinion; it is capable of + mathematical Demonstration. A Man's Son, for instance, + is but half of his Family, the other half belonging to + the Family of his Wife. His Son, too, marrying into + another Family, his Share in the Grandson is but a + fourth; in the Great Grandson, by the same Process, it + is but an Eighth; in the next Generation a Sixteenth; + the next a Thirty-second; the next a Sixty-fourth; the + next an Hundred and Twenty-eighth; the next a Two + hundred and Fifty-sixth; and the next a Five hundred + and twelfth; thus in nine Generations, which will not + require more than 300 years (no very great Antiquity + for a Family), our present Chevalier of the Order of + Cincinnatus's Share in the then existing Knight, will + be but a 512th part; which, allowing the present + certain Fidelity of American Wives to be insur'd down + through all those Nine Generations, is so small a + Consideration, that methinks no reasonable Man would + hazard for the sake of it the disagreeable + Consequences of the Jealousy, Envy, and Ill will of his + Countrymen. + + Let us go back with our Calculation from this young + Noble, the 512th part of the present Knight, thro' his + nine Generations, till we return to the year of the + Institution. He must have had a Father and Mother, they + are two. Each of them had a Father and Mother, they are + four. Those of the next preceding Generation will be + eight, the next Sixteen, the next thirty-two, the next + sixty-four, the next one hundred and Twenty-eight, the + next Two hundred and fifty-six, and the ninth in this + Retrocession Five hundred and twelve, who must be now + existing, and all contribute their Proportion of this + future _Chevalier de Cincinnatus_. These, with the + rest, make together as follows: + + 2 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 32 + 64 + 128 + 256 + 512 + ---- + 1022 + + One Thousand and Twenty-two Men and Women, contributors + to the formation of one Knight. And if we are to have a + Thousand of these future Knights, there must be now and + hereafter existing One Million and Twenty-two Thousand + Fathers and Mothers, who are to contribute to their + Production, unless a Part of the Number are employ'd in + making more Knights than One. Let us strike off then + the 22,000, on the Supposition of this double Employ, + and then consider whether, after a reasonable + Estimation of the Number of Rogues, and Fools, and + Royalists and Scoundrels and Prostitutes, that are + mix'd with, and help to make up necessarily their + Million of Predecessors, Posterity will have much + reason to boast of the noble Blood of the then existing + Set of Chevaliers de Cincinnatus. [The future + genealogists, too, of these Chevaliers, in proving the + lineal descent of their honour through so many + generations (even supposing honour capable in its + nature of descending), will only prove the small share + of this honour, which can be justly claimed by any one + of them; since the above simple process in arithmetic + makes it quite plain and clear that, in proportion as + the antiquity of the family shall augment, the right to + the honour of the ancestor will diminish; and a few + generations more would reduce it to something so small + as to be very near an absolute nullity.] I hope, + therefore, that the Order will drop this part of their + project, and content themselves, as the Knights of the + Garter, Bath, Thistle, St. Louis, and other Orders of + Europe do, with a Life Enjoyment of their little Badge + and Ribband, and let the Distinction die with those who + have merited it. This I imagine will give no offence. + For my own part, I shall think it a Convenience, when I + go into a Company where there may be Faces unknown to + me, if I discover, by this Badge, the Persons who merit + some particular Expression of my Respect; and it will + save modest Virtue the Trouble of calling for our + Regard, by awkward roundabout Intimations of having + been heretofore employ'd in the Continental Service. + + The Gentleman, who made the Voyage to France to provide + the Ribands and Medals, has executed his Commission. To + me they seem tolerably done; but all such Things are + criticis'd. Some find Fault with the Latin, as wanting + classic Elegance and Correctness; and, since our Nine + Universities were not able to furnish better Latin, it + was pity, they say, that the Mottos had not been in + English. Others object to the Title, as not properly + assumable by any but Gen. Washington, [and a few + others] who serv'd without Pay. Others object to the + _Bald Eagle_ as looking too much like a _Dindon_, or + Turkey. For my own Part, I wish the Bald Eagle had not + been chosen as the Representative of our Country; he is + a Bird of bad moral Character; he does not get his + living honestly; you may have seen him perch'd on some + dead Tree, near the River where, too lazy to fish for + himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing-Hawk; + and, when that diligent Bird has at length taken a + Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the support of + his Mate and young ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him, + and takes it from him. With all this Injustice he is + never in good Case; but, like those among Men who live + by Sharping and Robbing, he is generally poor, and + often very lousy. Besides, he is a rank Coward; the + little _King Bird_, not bigger than a Sparrow, attacks + him boldly and drives him out of the District. He is + therefore by no means a proper emblem for the brave and + honest Cincinnati of America, who have driven all the + _King-birds_ from our Country; though exactly fit for + that Order of Knights, which the French call + _Chevaliers d'Industrie_. + + I am, on this account, not displeas'd that the Figure + is not known as a Bald Eagle, but looks more like a + Turk'y. For in Truth, the Turk'y is in comparison a + much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original + Native of America. Eagles have been found in all + Countries, but the Turk'y was peculiar to ours; the + first of the Species seen in Europe being brought to + France by the Jesuits from Canada, and serv'd up at the + Wedding Table of Charles the Ninth. He is, [though a + little vain and silly, it is true, but not the worse + emblem for that,] a Bird of Courage, and would not + hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards, + who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a _red_ + Coat on. + +Nor need we dwell longer either upon Franklin as a poet. Considered +seriously as such, he was undoubtedly one of the kind, that, as Horace +says, neither Gods nor men can endure. But he should not be seriously +regarded as a poet at all. We should bring no severer judgment, to his +couplets than was brought to them by the plowmen and frontiersmen, who kept +_Poor Richard's Almanac_ suspended over their mantelpieces; and his +anacreontics should be read, as they were sung, after the edge of criticism +has been dulled by a bottle or so. It is only fair to Poor Richard, +however, to say that no one had a poorer opinion of his gifts as a poet +than himself. "I know as thee," he says in one of his prefaces, "that I am +no _Poet born_: and it is a Trade I never learnt, nor indeed could learn. +_If I make Verses, 'tis in Spight of Nature and my Stars, I write._" In +another preface, after honoring his friend Taylor, of Ephemerides fame, +with a considerable number of lines, he exclaims: "Souse down into Prose +again, my Muse; for Poetry's no more thy Element, than Air is that of the +Flying-Fish." And we need go no further than one of Franklin's lively +letters to Polly, at which we have already glanced, to satisfy ourselves +that he placed quite as low an estimate on his verses as Poor Richard did +on his. Speaking of the Muse, which he mentioned in his letter as having +visited him that morning, he observes in his light-hearted way: + + This Muse appear'd to be no Housewife. I suppose few of + them are. She was _drest_ (if the Expression is + allowable) in an _Undress_, a kind of slatternly + _Negligée_, neither neat nor clean, nor well made; and + she has given the same sort of Dress to my Piece. On + reviewing it, I would have reform'd the lines and made + them all of a Length, as I am told Lines ought to be; + but I find I can't lengthen the short ones without + stretching them on the Rack, and I think it would be + equally cruel to cut off any Part of the long ones. + Besides the Superfluity of _these_ makes up for the + Deficiency of _those_; and so, from a Principle of + Justice, I leave them at full Length, that I may give + you, at least in one Sense of the Word, _good Measure_. + +Of all the productions of Franklin, the _Autobiography_ and _Poor Richard's +Almanac_, are those upon which his literary fame will chiefly rest. Of the +former, we have already said too much to say much more about it. It is the +only thing written by Franklin that can properly be called a book, and even +it is marked by the brevity which he regarded as one of the essentials of +good writing. If he did not write other books, it was not, so far as we can +see, because, as has been charged, he lacked constructive capacity, but +rather because, when he resorted to the pen, he did it not for literary +celebrity, but for practical purposes of the hour, best subserved by brief +essays or papers. It is true that in writing the early chapters of the +_Autobiography_, which brought his life down to the year 1730, he was not +exactly writing for the moment, but, still, the motive by which he was +actuated was a purely practical one. "They were written to my Son," he said +in a letter to Matthew Carey, "and intended only as Information to my +Family." Even in the later chapters, which brought his life down to his +fiftieth year, he still had a similar incentive to literary effort, highly +congenial with the general bent of his character, that is to say, the +opportunity that they afforded him to point to his business success as an +example of what might be accomplished by frugality and industry. "What is +to follow," he wrote to the Duc de la Rochefoucauld, "will be of more +important Transactions: But it seems to me that what is done will be of +more general Use to young Readers; as exemplifying strongly the Effects of +prudent and imprudent Conduct in the Commencement of a Life of Business." +Two days later, he wrote to Benjamin Vaughan from Philadelphia that he was +diligently employed in writing the _Autobiography_, to which his +persuasions had not a little contributed. + + To shorten the work [he said], as well as for other + reasons, I omit all facts and transactions, that may + not have a tendency to benefit the young reader, by + showing him from my example, and my success in emerging + from poverty, and acquiring some degree of wealth, + power, and reputation, the advantages of certain modes + of conduct which I observed, and of avoiding the errors + which were prejudicial to me. + +To the limited nature of the inducements to the composition of the +_Autobiography_, disclosed by these letters, it was due that the interest +of Franklin in the subsequent continuation of the work was too languid for +the completion of the whole plan of the _Autobiography_, as intimated in +the Hints which he gives of its intended scope, notwithstanding the urgent +appeals which his friends never ceased to make to him to complete it. + +If one of the effects of the fearless self-arraignment of the +_Autobiography_ has been to lower the standing of Franklin in some respects +with posterity, we should remember the unselfish motive, which induced him +to turn his youthful errors to the profit of others, and also the fact that +he had his own misgivings about the bearing upon his reputation of such +outspoken self-exposure, and submitted the propriety of publishing the +_Autobiography_ unreservedly to the judgment of friends who were certainly +competent judges in every regard of what the moral sense of their time +would approve. + + I am not without my Doubts concerning the Memoirs, + whether it would be proper to publish them, or not, at + least during my Life time [he wrote to the Duc de la + Rochefoucauld], and I am persuaded there are many + Things that would, in Case of Publication, be best + omitted; I therefore request it most earnestly of you, + my dear Friend, that you would examine them carefully & + critically, with M. Le Veillard, and give me your + candid & friendly Advice thereupon, as soon as you can + conveniently. + +Later, he wrote to Benjamin Vaughan from Philadelphia that he had, of late, +been so interrupted by extreme pain, which obliged him to have recourse to +opium, that, between the effects of both, he had but little time, in which +he could write anything, but that his grandson was copying what was done, +which would be sent to Vaughan for his opinion by the next vessel; for he +found it a difficult task to speak decently and properly of one's own +conduct, and felt the want of a judicious friend to encourage him in +scratching out. The next time that Franklin wrote to Vaughan it was when +opium alone could render existence tolerable to him, but in the interim, he +had happily discovered that he could dictate even when he could not write. + + What is already done [he said] I now send you, with an + earnest request that you and my good friend Dr. Price + [later in the letter he calls him "my dear Dr. Price"] + would be so good as to take the trouble of reading it, + critically examining it, and giving me your candid + opinion whether I had best publish or suppress it; and + if the first, then what parts had better be expunged or + altered. I shall rely upon your opinions, for I am now + grown so old and feeble in mind, as well as body, that + I can not place any confidence in my own judgment. + +Of the same tenor was a still later letter to M. Le Veillard, in which +Franklin expressed the hope that Le Veillard would, with the Duc de la +Rochefoucauld, read the Memoirs over carefully, examine them critically and +send him his friendly, candid opinion of the parts that he would advise him +to correct or expunge, in case he should think that the work was generally +proper to be published, but, if he judged otherwise, that he would inform +him of that fact, too, as soon as possible, and prevent him from incurring +further trouble in the endeavor to finish the work. The world has reason to +be thankful that the fate of the _Autobiography_ should thus have been left +to the decision of men who, even if they had not lived in the eighteenth +century, would have been robust enough, in point of intelligence and +morals, to believe that the youthful _errata_ laid bare in that book were +more than atoned for by the manly and generous aims that inspired it. + +Of the _Autobiography_ it is enough now to say that it is one of the few +books which have arrested and permanently riveted the attention of the +whole civilized world. Commenting in it on the copy of _Pilgrim's +Progress_, "in Dutch, finely printed on good paper, with copper cuts," +which the drunken Dutchman, whom he drew up by the shock-pate from the +waters of New York Bay, on his first journey to Philadelphia, handed to him +to dry, Franklin says: "I have since found that it has been translated into +most of the languages of Europe, and suppose it has been more generally +read than any other book, except perhaps the Bible." The _Autobiography_ is +hardly less popular. It, too, has been translated into most of the +languages of Europe, and has been printed and reprinted until it is one of +the most widely-read books in existence. Such it is likely to remain +always, not simply because it was written by a very famous man, who +possessed, to an extraordinary degree, the power of impressing his thoughts +and fancies on the hearts and imagination of the human race, but because it +tells a story of self-conquest and self-promotion full of warning, guidance +and hope for every human being, who wishes to make the best of his own +opportunities and powers. As a mere composition, dressed though it is like +the poetic Muse described by Franklin in his letter to Polly "in a kind of +slatternly Negligée," it is one of the masterpieces of literature. Its very +careless loquacity is but suggestive of a mind overflowing with its own +profusion of experience and reflection. There is no better test of the +extent, to which a writer has proved himself equal to the highest +possibilities of his art, than to ask how readily his conceptions can be +pictured; for the mind of a great writer is but a gallery hung with such +pictures as the painter reduces to material form and color. Tried by this +test, the universal popularity of the _Autobiography_ can be readily +understood. The Book of Genesis, the plays of Shakespeare, _Pilgrim's +Progress_, the novels of Sir Walter Scott, are not more easily illustrated +than are the incidents depicted to the life in its early chapters. Some of +them wear a hard and coarse aspect as if they had been struck off from +ruder plates than any belonging to the present state of the art of +engraving, but this is only another proof of the fidelity of Franklin to +his eighteenth century background. We might as well quarrel with the +squalor and sluttishess of Hogarth's scenes. + +_Poor Richard's Almanac_, including the "Way to Wealth," or Father +Abraham's Speech is Franklin's other master-work. One would hardly look to +almanac-making for a classic contribution to letters, but it is not +extravagant to say that Poor Richard is one of the most lifelike figures in +the literature of the world. Nestor, Falstaff, Don Quixote, Robinson +Crusoe, Sir Roger de Coverley, Captain Dugald Dalgetty and Colonel Newcome +are not more distinctly delineated, or rather we should say are not more +manifest to the eye and palpable to the touch. To the people of +Pennsylvania, its tradesmen, its farmers, even its rude borderers, he was a +personage fully as real as the colonial governor at Philadelphia, and far +more popular. Thousands of its inhabitants never turned over the pages of +any other book except those of the Bible. And finally the wise sayings of +Poor Richard, in the form of the "Way to Wealth," applicable as they were +to the primal and universal conditions of human existence everywhere, +became known from the Thames to the Ganges. The middle of the eighteenth +century was the heyday of almanac-making, and the best proof of the durable +stuff, of which _Poor Richard's Almanac_ was woven, is the utter oblivion +that has overtaken all his competitors except those who are preserved in +his pages like flies in amber. The prefaces of _Poor Richard_, the +proverbial maxims with which his almanacs are bestrewn, the compendious +speech on which these maxims are finally strung like bright beads, have +survived, because they were adapted, with consummate art, to the simple +habits and mental wants of the rude audience, to which they were addressed. +For upwards of thirty years, Poor Richard, with a distinctness and +consistency of character as perfect as those of Santa Claus, made his +annual bow to the People of Pennsylvania, and served up to their delighted +palates his highly seasoned _ollapodrida_ of mock astrology, homely wisdom +and coarse jollity in prose and verse. Sometimes the humor is mere horse +laughter. But always the shrewd, worldly-wise, merry-tempered old philomath +and stargazer hits the fancy of his readers with unerring accuracy between +wind and water. His weather predictions and prognostications of planetary +conjunctions are just serious enough for unlettered rustics whose minds +have been partially but not wholly disabused of the belief that rain comes +with the change of the moon. His proverbs are the proverbs of men whose +lives are too meagre and straitened to permit them to forget his saying +that if you will not hear Reason she'll surely rap your knuckles. His humor +is the humor of men whose grave, weather-beaten features do not relax into +a smile or grin except under the compelling influence of some broad joke or +ridiculous spectacle. Just as the most successful inventor is the one who +invents the device that has the widest application to material uses, so the +most successful writer is the one who conceives the thoughts that have the +widest application to the moral and intellectual needs of mankind. The +thoughts that Poor Richard conceived or adopted are such thoughts; for what +he taught was full of significance to every man who desires to obtain a +correct insight into the moral and economic laws that govern the world for +the purpose of winning its favor; which means all men except those who +either prey on the world or merely drift along with its current. + +In the Prefaces to his _Almanac_, Poor Richard manages to keep both his +wife Bridget and himself close to the footlights. In the first preface, he +says that, if he were to declare that he wrote almanacs with no other view +than of the public good, he should not be sincere. + + The plain Truth of the Matter is [he confesses], I am + excessive poor, and my Wife, good Woman, is, I tell + her, excessive proud; she cannot bear, she says, to sit + spinning in her Shift of Tow, while I do nothing but + gaze at the Stars; and has threatned more than once to + burn all my Books and Rattling-Traps (as she calls my + Instruments) if I do not make some profitable Use of + them for the Good of my Family. + +In the preface of the succeeding year he announces that the patronage of +his readers the year before had made his circumstances much easier. His +wife had been enabled to get a pot of her own, and was no longer obliged to +borrow one from a neighbor; nor had they ever since been without something +of their own to put in it. She had also got a pair of shoes, two new +shifts, and a new, warm petticoat, and for his part he had bought a +second-hand coat, so good that he was no longer ashamed to go to town or be +seen there. These things had rendered Bridget's temper so much more pacific +than it used to be that he might say that he had slept more, and more +quietly within the last year than in the three foregoing years put +together. + +In a later preface, he declares that, if the generous purchaser of his +labors could see how often his fi-pence helped to light up the comfortable +fire, line the pot, fill the cup and make glad the heart of a poor man and +an honest good old woman, he would not think his money ill laid out, though +the almanac of his Friend and Servant, R. Saunders, were one half blank +paper. + +A year later, Mistress Saunders avails herself of the fact that her good +man had set out the week before for Potowmack to visit an old stargazer of +his acquaintance, and to see about a little place for the couple to settle, +and end their days on, to scratch out the preface to the copy of the +almanac for that year which he had left behind him for the press, because +it had undertaken to let the world know that she, who had already been held +out in former prefaces as proud and loud and the possessor of a new +petticoat, had lately, forsooth, taken a fancy to drink a little tea now +and then. Upon looking over the months, she saw that he had put in +abundance of foul weather this year, and therefore she had scattered here +and there, where she could find room, some fair, pleasant sunshiny days for +the good women to dry their clothes in. If what she promised did not come +to pass, she would at any rate have shown her goodwill. + +In the next preface, referring to the impression that the great yearly +demand for his almanac had made him so rich that he should call himself +Poor Dick no longer, and pretending that he and the printer were different +persons, Poor Richard says: + + When I first begun to publish, the Printer made a fair + Agreement with me for my copies, by Virtue of which he + runs _away with_ the greatest Part of the + Profit--However much good may't do him; I do not grudge + it him; he is a Man I have a great Regard for, and I + wish his Profit ten times greater than it is. For I am, + dear Reader, his as well as thy + +_Affectionate Friend_, +R. SAUNDERS. + +But the five pence came in too rapidly for the almanac-maker to persist in +putting up a poor mouth of this kind. In his twelfth year, after frankly +admitting that he had labored not for the benefit of the public but for the +benefit of his own dear self, not forgetting in the meantime his gracious +consort and Duchess, the peaceful, quiet, silent Lady Bridget, he states +that, whether his labors had been of any service to the public or not, he +must acknowledge that they had been of service to him. + +It was by such personal touches as these that Poor Richard made Bridget and +himself as familiar to his patrons as the signs of the Zodiac. Astrology +itself was, of course, too good a subject for keen ridicule to be spared. +Formerly, Poor Richard declares in one preface, no prince would make war or +peace, nor any general fight a battle without first consulting an +astrologer, who examined the aspects and configurations of the heavenly +bodies, and marked the lucky hour. But "now," he goes on, "the noble art +(more shame to the age we live in) is dwindled into contempt; the Great +neglect us, Empires make Leagues, and Parliaments Laws without advising +with us; and scarce any other use is made of our learned labours than to +find the best time of cutting corns or gelding Pigs." + +In many sly ways, Poor Richard let his readers know that his forecasts are +not to be accepted too seriously. It is no wonder, he says in his fifth +preface, that, among the multitude of astrological predictions, some few +should fail; for, without any defect in the art itself, 'tis well known +that a small error, a single wrong figure overseen in a calculation, may +occasion great mistakes, but, however the almanac-makers might miss it in +other things, he believed it would be generally allowed that they always +hit the day of the month, and that, he supposed, was esteemed one of the +most useful things in an almanac. In another issue of the almanac, he +indulges in a great variety of confident predictions as to the year 1739. +The crabs will go sidelong and the rope-makers backwards, the belly will +wag before, and another part of the body, which we shall not name, but he +does, will sit down first, Mercury will so confound the speech of people +that, when a Pennsylvanian will wish to say panther, he will say _painter_, +and, when a New Yorker will attempt to say _this_, he will say _diss_, and +the people of New England and Cape May will not be able to say _cow_ for +their lives, but will be forced to say _keow_ by a certain involuntary +twist in the root of their tongues. As for Connecticut men and Marylanders, +they will not be able to open their mouths but _sir_ shall be the first or +last syllable they will pronounce, and sometimes both. + +Some of his other predictions are that the stone blind will see but very +little, the deaf will hear but poorly and the dumb will not speak very +plain, while whole flocks, herds and droves of sheep, swine and oxen, cocks +and hens, ducks and drakes, geese and ganders will go to pot, but the +mortality will not be altogether so great among cats, dogs and horses. As +for age, it will be incurable because of the years past, and, towards the +fall, some people will be seized with an unaccountable inclination to eat +their own ears. But the worst disease of all will be a certain most horrid, +dreadful, malignant, catching, perverse and odious malady, almost +epidemical, insomuch that many will run mad upon it. "I quake for very +Fear," exclaims Poor Richard, "when I think on't; for I assure you very few +will escape this Disease, which is called by the learned Albumazar +_Lacko'mony_." + +That the orange trees in Greenland will go near to fare the worse for the +cold, that oats will be a great help to horses and that there will not be +much more bacon than swine, are still other prophecies hazarded by the +astrologer. + +In another preface, he declares that he has gone into retirement, and that +it is time for an old man such as he is to think of preparing for his Great +Remove. Then follow these impatient statements: + + The perpetual Teasing of both Neighbours and Strangers, + to calculate Nativities, give Judgments on Schemes, + erect Figures, discover Thieves, detect Horse-Stealers, + describe the Route of Run-a-ways and stray'd Cattle; + the Croud of Visitors with a 1000 trifling Questions; + _will my Ship return Safe?_ _Will my Mare win the + Race?_ _Will her next Colt be a Pacer?_ _When will my + Wife die?_ _Who shall be my Husband, and HOW LONG + first?_ _When is the best time to cut Hair, trim Locks + or sow Sallad?_ These and the like Impertinences I have + now neither Taste nor Leisure for. I have had enough of + 'em. All that these angry Folks can say, will never + provoke me to tell them where I live. I would eat my + Nails first. + +At times the horse laughter is even slightly flavored with the +stercoraceous smell of the stable. + + Ignorant Men [says Poor Richard in his seventh preface] + wonder how we Astrologers foretell the Weather so + exactly, unless we deal with the old black Devil. Alas! + 'tis as easy as.... For Instance; the Stargazer peeps + at the heavens thro' a long Glass: He sees perhaps + TAURUS, or the Great Bull, in a mighty Chafe, stamping + on the Floor of his House, swinging his Tail about, + stretching out his Neck, and opening wide his Mouth. + 'Tis natural from these Appearances to judge that this + furious Bull is puffing, blowing and roaring. Distance + being consider'd and Time allow'd for all this to come + down, there you have Wind and Thunder. He spies perhaps + VIRGO (or the Virgin;) she turns her Head round as it + were to see if anybody observ'd her; then crouching + down gently, with her Hands on her Knees, she looks + wistfully for a while right forward. He judges rightly + what she's about: And having calculated the Distance + and allow'd Time for its Falling, finds that next + Spring we shall have a fine _April_ shower. + +In his preface for 1754, Poor Richard advances the proposition that the +first astrologers were honest husbandmen, and he proceeds to prove it +partly by the names of the Zodiacal signs, which were related for the most +part, he asserts, to rural affairs. The Ram, the Bull, the Twins, the Crab, +the Lion, the Wench, the Balance, the Scorpion, the Archer, the Goat, the +Waterbearer, the Fish, one by one he tells them off in the course of his +demonstration, making his own comments on their several meanings as he goes +along. The Lion and the Wench, he says, were intended by the Ancients to +mark the summer months and dog days when those creatures were most +mischievous. The Balance, one of the autumnal signs, was intended by them +to mark out the time for weighing and selling the summer's produce, or for +holding courts of justice in which they might plague themselves and their +neighbors. The Scorpion, with the sting in his tail, certainly denoted the +paying of costs. The Goat accompanies the short days and long nights of +winter, to show the season of mirth, feasting and jollity; for what could +Capricorn mean but dancing or cutting of capers? Lastly came Pisces, or the +two Shads, to signify the approaching return of those fish up the rivers. +"Make your Wears, hawl your Seins, Catch 'em and pickle 'em, my Friends," +advised Poor Richard "they are excellent Relishars of Old Cyder." + +But Poor Richard's prefaces are not altogether made up of hearty, hilarious +jests and loud guffaws. The raillery, with which he plies his rival +philomath, Titan Leeds, would be as admirable as any humor in his writings, +if it were not borrowed so manifestly from Dean Swift's ridicule of +Partridge, the almanac-maker. In his very first preface in 1733, he says +that he would have published an almanac many years before had he not been +restrained by his regard for his good friend and fellow-student, Mr. Titan +Leeds, whose interest he was extremely unwilling to hurt. + + But this Obstacle (I am far from speaking it with + Pleasure) [declares Poor Richard] is soon to be removed, + since inexorable Death, who was never known to respect + Merit, has already prepared the mortal Dart, the fatal + Sister has already extended her destroying Shears, and + that ingenious Man must soon be taken from us. He dies, + by my Calculation made at his Request, on Oct. 17, 1733. + 3 h. 29 m. P.M. at the very instant of the conjunction + of Sun and Mercury. By his own Calculation he will + survive till the 26th of the same Month. This small + Difference between us we have disputed whenever we have + met these 9 Years past; but at length he is inclinable + to agree with my Judgment: Which of us is most exact, a + little Time will now determine. As therefore these + Provinces may not longer expect to see any of his + Performances after this Year, I think myself free to + take up the Task, and request a share of the publick + Encouragement. + +To these assertions Leeds returned a hot answer in his American Almanac for +the succeeding year. Notwithstanding the false prediction of the writer, +who proposed to succeed him in the writing of almanacs, he had, he said, by +the mercy of God lived to write a diary for the year 1734 and to publish +the folly and ignorance of the presumptuous author, whom he did not +scruple, in the rising tide of his wrath, to term "a Fool and a Lyar" and +"a conceited Scribler." This, of course, was just what Poor Richard was +calculating on. In his next preface, he is at his very best. + + In the Preface to my last Almanack [he says], I + foretold the Death of my dear old Friend and + Fellow-Student, the learned and ingenious Mr. _Titan + Leeds_, which was to be on the 17th of _October_, 1733, + 3 h. 29 m. P.M. at the very Instant of the conjunction of Sun and + Mercury. By his own Calculation he was to survive + till the 26th of the same Month, and expire in the Time + of the Eclipse, near 11 o'clock A.M. At which of these + Times he died, or whether he be really yet dead, I can + not at this present Writing positively assure my + Readers; forasmuch as a Disorder in my own Family + demanded my Presence, and would not permit me as I had + intended, to be with him in his last Moments, to + receive his last Embrace, to close his Eyes, and do the + Duty of a Friend in performing the last Offices to the + Departed. Therefore it is that I can not positively + affirm whether he be dead or not; for the Stars only + show to the Skilful, what will happen in the natural + and universal Chain of Causes and Effects; but 'tis + well known, that the Events which would otherwise + certainly happen at certain Times in the Course of + Nature are sometimes set aside or postpon'd for wise + and good Reasons by the immediate particular + Dispositions of Providence; which particular + Dispositions the Stars can by no Means discover or + foreshow. There is however (and I can not speak it + without Sorrow) there is the strongest Probability that + my dear Friend is no more; for there appears in his + Name, as I am assured, an Almanack for the year 1734, + in which I am treated in a very gross and unhandsome + Manner; in which I am called _a false Predicter_, _an + Ignorant_, _a conceited Scribler_, _a Fool_, _and a + Lyar_. Mr. Leeds was too well bred to use any Man so + indecently and so scurrilously, and moreover his Esteem + and Affection for me was extraordinary: So that it is + to be feared that Pamphlet may be only a Contrivance of + somebody or other, who hopes perhaps to sell two or + three Years Almanacks still, by the sole Force and + Virtue of Mr. _Leed's_ Name; but certainly, to put + Words into the Mouth of a Gentleman and a Man of + Letters, against his Friend, which the meanest and + most scandalous of the People might be asham'd to utter + even in a drunken Quarrel, is an unpardonable Injury to + his Memory, and an Imposition upon the Publick. + + Mr. _Leeds_ was not only profoundly skilful in the + useful Science he profess'd, but he was a Man of + _exemplary_ Sobriety, a most _sincere Friend_, and an + _exact Performer of his Word_. These valuable + Qualifications, with many others so much endear'd him + to me, that although it should be so, that, contrary to + all Probability, contrary to my Prediction and his own, + he might possibly be yet alive, yet my Loss of Honour + as a Prognosticator, can not afford me so much + Mortification, as his Life, Health and Safety would + give me Joy and Satisfaction. + +By these observations, the burden was again imposed upon Titan Leeds of +demonstrating that he was still alive, and accordingly in his next preface +his indignant shade did not fail to take notice of them. + +But, with the succeeding revolution of the earth about the sun, Poor +Richard was at his sport again. + + Whatever may be the Musick of the Spheres [he said], + how great soever the Harmony of the Stars, 'tis certain + there is no Harmony among the Stargazers; but they are + perpetually growling and snarling at one another like + strange Curs, or like some Men at their Wives: I had + resolved to keep the Peace on my own part, and affront + none of them; and I shall persist in that Resolution: + But having receiv'd much Abuse from _Titan Leeds_ + deceas'd (_Titan Leeds_ when living would not have us'd + me so!) I say, having receiv'd much Abuse from the + Ghost of _Titan Leeds_, who pretends to be still + living, and to write Almanacks in Spight of me and my + Predictions, I can not help saying, that tho' I take it + patiently, I take it very unkindly. And whatever he may + pretend, 'tis undoubtedly true that he is really + defunct and dead. First because the Stars are seldom + disappointed, never but in the Case of wise Men, + _sapiens dominabitur astris_, and they foreshow'd his + Death at the Time I predicted it. Secondly, 'Twas + requisite and necessary he should die punctually at + that Time, for the Honour of Astrology, the Art + professed both by him and his Father before him. + Thirdly, 'Tis plain to every one that reads his two + last Almanacks (for 1734 and 35) that they are not + written with that _Life_ his Performances use to be + written with; the Wit is low and flat, the little Hints + dull and spiritless, nothing smart in them but + _Hudibras's Verses_ against Astrology at the Heads of + the Months in the last, which no Astrologer but a _dead + one_ would have inserted, and no man _living_ would or + could write such Stuff as the rest. + +In a later preface, Poor Richard complains that certain ill-willers of his, +despited at the great reputation that he had gained by exactly predicting +another man's death, had endeavored to deprive him of it all at once in the +most effective manner by reporting that he himself was never alive. It was +not civil treatment, he said, to endeavor to deprive him of his very being, +and to reduce him to a non-entity in the opinion of the public; but, so +long as he knew himself to walk about, eat, drink and sleep, he was +satisfied that there was really such a man as he was, whatever they might +say to the contrary. As his printer seemed as unwilling to father his +offspring as he was to lose the credit of them, to clear him entirely as +well as to vindicate his own honor he made this public and serious +declaration, which he desired might be believed, to wit, that what he had +written theretofore and did now write neither had been nor was written by +any other man or men, person or persons whatsoever. Those who were not +satisfied with this must needs be very unreasonable. + +To cap the climax of all this fun, Poor Richard finally published, in one +of his prefaces, a letter, alleged by him to have been written to him by +Titan Leeds from the other world, which stated that the writer was grieved +at the aspersions cast on Poor Richard by avaricious publishers of +almanacs, who envied his success, and pretended that the writer remained +alive many years after the hour predicted for his death by Poor Richard, +and certified that he, Titan Leeds, did die presently at that hour with a +variation only of 5 m. 53 sec.; which must be allowed to be no great matter +in such cases. Nay more, in this letter Titan Leeds was made to predict +that another Pennsylvania philomath and competitor of Poor Richard, one +John Jerman would be openly reconciled to the Church of Rome, and give all +his goods and chattels to the Chapel, being perverted by a certain country +schoolmaster. + +In a former year, Poor Richard had already charged Jerman with making such +flexible prophecies as "Snow here or in New England," "Rain here or in +South Carolina," "Cold to the Northward," "Warm to the Southward." If he +were to adopt that method, he said, he would not be so likely to have his +mistakes detected, but he did not consider that it would be of any service +to anybody to know what weather it was 1000 miles off, and therefore he +always set down positively what weather his reader would have, be he where +he might be at the time. All he modestly desired was only the favorable +allowance of a day or two before and a day or two after the precise day +against which the weather was set. + +On another previous occasion, Poor Richard had made his readers a promise +about Jerman which he does not seem to have ever redeemed. "When my Brother +J-m-n," he said, "erected a Scheme to know which was best for his sick +Horse, to sup a new-laid Egg, or a little Broth, he found that the Stars +plainly gave their Verdict for Broth, and the Horse having sup'd his +Broth;--Now, what do you think became of that Horse? You shall know in my +next." + +When the prediction of Titan Leeds from beyond the grave that Jerman would +apostatize was duly published, the latter resented it; and, in his Almanac +for the year 1742, Poor Richard felt it necessary to say a word about the +matter himself. + + My last Adversary [he declared] is J. J--n, Philomat., + who _declares and protests_ (in his preface, 1741) that + the _false Prophecy put in my Almanack, concerning him, + the Year before, is altogether_ false and untrue: _and + that I am one of Baal's false Prophets_. This _false, + false Prophecy_ he speaks of, related to his + Reconciliation with the Church of Rome; which, + notwithstanding his Declaring and Protesting, is, I + fear, too true. Two Things in his elegiac Verses + confirm me in this Suspicion. He calls the first of + _November_ by the name of _All Hallows Day_. Reader; + does not this smell of Popery? Does it in the least + savour of the pure Language of Friends? But the + plainest Thing is; his Adoration of Saints, which he + confesses to be his Practice, in these Words, page 4. + + "When any Trouble did me befal, + To my dear _Mary_ then I would call." + + Did he think the whole World were so stupid as not to + take Notice of this? So ignorant as not to know, that + all Catholicks pay the highest Regard to the _Virgin + Mary_? Ah! Friend _John_, we must allow you to be a + _Poet_, but you are certainly no Protestant. I could + heartily wish your Religion were as good as your + Verses. + +Mingled with the other contents of _Poor Richard's Almanac_ were pointed +maxims and sayings worthy of Lord John Russell's happy definition of a +proverb "the wit of one and the wisdom of many," and at times first- or +second-hand verses also. + +Among the best of the latter are the following: + + When Robin now three days had married been, + And all his friends and neighbours gave him joy, + This question of his wife he asked then, + Why till her marriage day she proved so coy? + Indeed said he, 'twas well thou didst not yield, + For doubtless then my purpose was to leave thee: + O, sir, I once before was so beguil'd, + And was resolved the next should not deceive me. + + +Poetry for December, 1734 + +By Mrs. Bridget Saunders, my Dutchess in answer to the December verses of +last year. + + He that for the sake of drink neglects his trade, + And spends each night in taverns till 'tis late, + And rises when the sun is four hours high, + And ne'er regards his starving family, + God in his mercy may do much to save him + But, woe to the poor wife, whose lot is to have him. + + * * * * + + Time eateth all things, could old poets say. + But times are chang'd, our times _drink_ all away + + * * * * + + Old Batchelor would have a wife that's wise, + Fair, rich and young a maiden for his bed; + Not proud, nor churlish, but of faultless size + A country housewife in the city bred. + He's a nice fool and long in vain hath staid; + He should bespeak her, there's none ready made. + +And this is Poor Richard's version of how Cupid and Campaspe played for +kisses: + + My love and I for kisses play'd, + She would keep stakes, I was content, + But when I won, she would be paid, + This made me ask her what she meant: + Quoth she, since you are in the wrangling vein + Here take your kisses, give me mine again. + +The first preface to _Poor Richard's Almanac_ appeared in the issue for +1733. In 1758, the proverbs and sayings, scattered through the preceding +issues of the publication, were assembled in the _Way to Wealth_ or _Father +Abraham's Speech_. Even John Bach McMaster in his brief, though admirable, +work on Franklin as a man of letters found that he could not abridge this +renowned production; so we offer no apology for inserting it here in its +entirety: + + COURTEOUS READER + + I have heard that nothing gives an Author so great + Pleasure, as to find his Works respectfully quoted by + other learned Authors. This Pleasure I have seldom + enjoyed; for tho' I have been, if I may say it without + Vanity, an _eminent Author_ of Almanacks annually now a + full Quarter of a Century, my Brother Authors in the + same Way, for what Reason I know not, have ever been + very sparing in their Applauses, and no other Author + has taken the least Notice of me, so that did not my + Writings produce me some solid _Pudding_, the great + Deficiency of _Praise_ would have quite discouraged me. + + I concluded at length, that the People were the best + Judges of my Merit; for they buy my Works; and besides, + in my Rambles, where I am not personally known, I have + frequently heard one or other of my Adages repeated, + with, _as Poor Richard says_, at the End on 't; this + gave me some Satisfaction, as it showed not only that + my Instructions were regarded, but discovered likewise + some Respect for my Authority; and I own, that to + encourage the Practice of remembering and repeating + those wise Sentences, I have sometimes _quoted myself_ + with great Gravity. + + Judge, then how much I must have been gratified by an + Incident I am going to relate to you. I stopt my Horse + lately where a great Number of People were collected at + a Vendue of Merchant Goods. The Hour of Sale not being + come, they were conversing on the Badness of the Times + and one of the Company call'd to a plain clean old Man, + with white Locks, "Pray, Father Abraham, what think you + of the Times? Won't these heavy Taxes quite ruin the + Country? How shall we be ever able to pay them? What + would you advise us to?" Father _Abraham_ stood up, and + reply'd, "If you'd have my Advice, I'll give it you in + short, for _A Word to the Wise is enough_, and _many + Words won't fill a Bushel_, as _Poor Richard_ says." + They join'd in desiring him to speak his Mind, and + gathering round him, he proceeded as follows; + + "Friends," says he, "and Neighbours, the Taxes are + indeed very heavy, and if those laid on by the + Government were the only Ones we had to pay, we might + more easily discharge them; but we have many others, + and much more grievous to some of us. We are taxed + twice as much by our _Idleness_, three times as much by + our Pride, and four times as much by our _Folly_; and + from these Taxes the Commissioners cannot ease or + deliver us by allowing an Abatement. However let us + hearken to good Advice, and something may be done for + us; _God helps them that help themselves_, as _Poor + Richard_ says, in his Almanack of 1733. + + "It would be thought a hard Government that should tax + its People one-tenth Part of their _Time_, to be + employed in its Service. But _Idleness_ taxes many of + us much more, if we reckon all that is spent in + absolute _Sloth_, or doing of nothing, with that which + is spent in idle Employments or Amusements, that amount + to nothing. _Sloth_, by bringing on Diseases, + absolutely shortens Life. _Sloth, like Rust, consumes + faster than Labour wears; while the used Key is always + bright_ as _Poor Richard_ says. _But dost thou love + Life, then do not squander Time, for that's the stuff + Life is made of_, as _Poor Richard_ says. How much more + than is necessary do we spend in sleep, forgetting that + _The sleeping Fox catches no Poultry_, and that _There + will be sleeping enough in the Grave_, as _Poor + Richard_ says. + + "_If Time be of all Things the most precious, wasting + Time must be_, as _Poor Richard_ says, _the greatest + Prodigality_; since, as he elsewhere tells us, _Lost + Time is never found again; and what we call Time + enough, always proves little enough_: Let us then be up + and doing, and doing to the Purpose; so by Diligence + shall we do more with less Perplexity. _Sloth makes all + Things difficult, but Industry all easy_, as _Poor + Richard_ says; and _He that riseth late must trot all + Day, and shall scarce overtake his Business at Night_; + while _Laziness travels so slowly, that Poverty soon + overtakes him_, as we read in _Poor Richard_, who adds, + _Drive thy Business, let not that drive thee_; and + _Early to Bed, and early to rise, makes a Man healthy, + wealthy, and wise_. + + "So what signifies _wishing_ and _hoping_ for better + Times. We may make these Times better, if we bestir + ourselves. _Industry need not wish_, as _Poor Richard_ + says, _and he that lives upon Hope will die fasting_. + _There are no Gains without Pains; then Help Hands, for + I have no Lands_, or if I have, they are smartly taxed. + And, as _Poor Richard_ likewise observes, _He that hath + a Trade hath an Estate; and he that hath a Calling, + hath an Office of Profit_ and Honour; but then the + _Trade_ must be worked at, and the _Calling_ well + followed, or neither the _Estate_ nor the _Office_ will + enable us to pay our Taxes. If we are industrious, we + shall never starve; for, as _Poor Richard_ says, _At + the working Man's House Hunger looks in, but dares not + enter_. Nor will the Bailiff or the Constable enter, + for _Industry pays Debts, while Despair encreaseth + them_, says _Poor Richard_. What though you have found + no Treasure, nor has any rich Relation left you a + Legacy, _Diligence is the Mother of Goodluck_ as _Poor + Richard_ says _and God gives all Things to Industry_. + _Then plough deep, while Sluggards sleep, and you shall + have Corn to sell and to keep_, says _Poor Dick_. Work + while it is called To-day, for you know not how much + you may be hindered To-morrow, which makes _Poor + Richard_ say, _One to-day is worth two To-morrows_, and + farther, _Have you somewhat to do To-morrow, do it + To-day_. If you were a Servant, would you not be + ashamed that a good Master should catch you idle? Are + you then your own Master, _be ashamed to catch yourself + idle_, as _Poor Dick_ says. When there is so much to be + done for yourself, your Family, your Country, and your + gracious King, be up by Peep of Day; _Let not the Sun + look down and say, Inglorious here he lies_. Handle + your Tools without Mittens; remember that _The Cat in + Gloves catches no Mice_, as _Poor Richard_ says. 'Tis + true there is much to be done, and perhaps you are + weak-handed, but stick to it steadily; and you will see + great Effects, for _Constant Dropping wears away + Stones_, and by _Diligence and Patience the Mouse ate + in two the Cable_; and _Little Strokes fell great + Oaks_, as _Poor Richard_ says in his Almanack, the Year + I cannot just now remember. + + "Methinks I hear some of you say, _Must a Man afford + himself no Leisure?_ I will tell thee, my friend, what + _Poor Richard_ says, _Employ thy Time well, if thou + meanest to gain Leisure; and, since thou are not sure + of a Minute, throw not away an Hour_. Leisure is Time + for doing something useful; this Leisure the diligent + Man will obtain, but the lazy Man never; so that, as + _Poor Richard_ says _A Life of Leisure and a Life of + Laziness are two Things_. Do you imagine that Sloth + will afford you more Comfort than Labour? No, for as + _Poor Richard_ says, _Trouble springs from Idleness, + and grievous Toil from needless Ease. Many without + Labour, would live by their Wits only, but they break + for want of Stock._ Whereas Industry gives Comfort, and + Plenty, and Respect: _Fly Pleasures, and they'll follow + you_. _The diligent Spinner has a large Shift; and now + I have a Sheep and a Cow, everybody bids me good + Morrow_; all which is well said by _Poor Richard_. + + "But with our Industry, we must likewise be _steady_, + _settled_, and _careful_, and oversee our own Affairs + _with our own Eyes_, and not trust too much to others; + for, as _Poor Richard_ says + + _I never saw an oft-removed Tree, + Nor yet an oft-removed Family, + That throve so well as those that settled be._ + + And again, _Three Removes is as bad as a Fire_; and + again, _Keep thy Shop, and thy Shop will keep thee_; + and again, _If you would have your Business done, go; + if not, send_, and again, + + _He that by the Plough would thrive, + Himself must either hold or drive._ + + And again, _The Eye of a Master will do more Work than + both his Hands_; and again, _Want of Care does us more + Damage than Want of Knowledge_; and again, _Not to + oversee Workmen, is to leave them your Purse open_. + Trusting too much to others' Care is the Ruin of many; + for, as the Almanack says, _In the Affairs of this + World, Men are saved, not by Faith, but by the Want of + it_; but a Man's own Care is profitable; for, saith + _Poor Dick_, _Learning is to the Studious_, and _Riches + to the Careful_, as well as _Power to the Bold, and + Heaven to the Virtuous_, And farther, _If you would + have a faithful Servant, and one that you like, serve + yourself_. And again, he adviseth to Circumspection and + Care, even in the smallest Matters, because sometimes + _A little Neglect may breed great Mischief_; adding, + _for want of a Nail the Shoe was lost; for want of a + Shoe the Horse was lost; and for want of a Horse the + Rider was lost, being overtaken and slain by the Enemy; + all for want of Care about a Horse-shoe Nail_. + + "So much for Industry, my Friends, and Attention to + one's own Business; but to these we must add + _Frugality_, if we would make our _Industry_ more + certainly successful. A Man may, if he knows not how to + save as he gets, _keep his Nose all his Life to the + Grindstone_, and die not worth a Groat at last. A _fat + Kitchen makes a lean Will_, as _Poor Richard_ says; and + + _Many Estates are spent in the Getting,_ + _Since Women for Tea forsook Spinning and Knitting,_ + _And Men for Punch forsook Hewing and Splitting._ + + _If you would be wealthy_, says he, in another + Almanack, _think of Saving as well as of Getting: The + Indies have not made Spain rich, because her Outgoes + are greater than her Incomes_. + + "Away then with your expensive Follies, and you will + not then have so much Cause to complain of hard Times, + heavy Taxes, and chargeable Families; for, as _Poor + Dick_ says, + + Women and Wine, Game and Deceit, + Make the Wealth small and the Wants great. + + And farther, _What maintains one Vice, would bring up + two Children_. You may think perhaps, that a _little_ + Tea, or a _little_ Punch now and then, Diet a _little_ + more costly, Clothes, a _little_ finer, and a _little_ + Entertainment now and then, can be no _great_ Matter; + but remember what _Poor Richard_ says, _Many a Little + makes a Mickle_; and farther, _Beware of little + Expences; A small Leak will sink a great Ship_; and + again, _Who Dainties love, shall Beggars prove_; and + moreover, _Fools make Feasts, and wise Men eat them_. + + "Here you are all got together at this Vendue of + _Fineries_ and _Knicknacks_. You call them _Goods_; but + if you do not take Care, they will prove _Evils_ to + some of you. You expect they will be sold _Cheap_, and + perhaps they may for less than they cost; but if you + have no Occasion for them, they must be _dear_ to you. + Remember what _Poor Richard_ says; _Buy what thou hast + no Need of, and ere long thou shalt sell thy + Necessaries_. And again, _At a great Pennyworth pause a + while_: He means, that perhaps the Cheapness is + _apparent_ only, and not _Real_; or the bargain by + straitening thee in thy Business, may do thee more Harm + than Good. For in another Place he says, _Many have + been ruined by buying good Pennyworths._ Again, _Poor + Richard_ says, _'tis foolish to lay out Money in a + Purchase of Repentance_; and yet this Folly is + practised every Day at Vendues, for want of minding the + Almanack. _Wise Men_, as _Poor Dick_ says, _learn by + others Harms, Fools scarcely by their own_; but _felix + quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum_. Many a one, for + the Sake of Finery on the Back, have gone with a hungry + Belly, and half-starved their Families. _Silks and + Sattins, Scarlet and Velvets_, as _Poor Richard_ says, + _put out the Kitchen Fire_. + + "These are not the _Necessaries of Life_; they can + scarcely be called the _Conveniences_; and yet only + because they look pretty, how many _want_ to _have_ + them! The _artificial_ Wants of Mankind thus become + more numerous than the _Natural_; and, as _Poor Dick_ + says, _for one poor Person, there are an hundred + indigent_. By these, and other Extravagancies, the + Genteel are reduced to poverty, and forced to borrow of + those whom they formerly despised, but who through + Industry and Frugality have maintained their Standing; + in which Case it appears plainly, that _A Ploughman on + his Legs is higher than a Gentleman on his Knees_, as + _Poor Richard_ says. Perhaps they have had a small + Estate left them, which they knew not the Getting of; + they think, _'tis Day, and will never be Night_; that a + little to be spent out of so much, is not worth + minding; _a Child and a Fool_, as _Poor Richard_ says, + _imagine Twenty shillings and Twenty Years can never be + spent_ but, _always taking out of the Meal-tub, and + never putting in, soon comes to the Bottom_; as _Poor + Dick_ says, _When the Well's dry, they know the Worth + of Water_. But this they might have known before, if + they had taken his Advice; _If you would know the Value + of Money, go and try to borrow some; for, he that goes + a borrowing goes a sorrowing_; and indeed so does he + that lends to such People, when he goes _to get it in + again_. _Poor Dick_ farther advises, and says, + + _Fond Pride of Dress is sure a very Curse;_ + _E'er Fancy you consult, consult your Purse._ + + And again, _Pride is as loud a Beggar as Want, and a + great deal more saucy_. When you have bought one fine + Thing, you must buy ten more, that your Appearance may + be all of a Piece; but _Poor Dick_ says, '_Tis easier + to suppress the first Desire, than to satisfy all that + follow it_. And 'tis as truly Folly for the Poor to ape + the Rich, as for the Frog to swell, in order to equal + the ox. + + _Great Estates may venture more,_ + _But little Boats should keep near Shore._ + + 'Tis, however, a Folly soon punished; for _Pride that + dines on Vanity, sups on Contempt_, as _Poor Richard_ + says. And in another Place, _Pride breakfasted with + Plenty, dined with Poverty, and supped with Infamy_. + And after all, of what Use is this _Pride of + Appearance_, for which so much is risked so much is + suffered? It cannot promote Health, or ease Pain; it + makes no Increase of Merit in the Person, it creates + Envy, it hastens Misfortune. + + _What is a Butterfly? At best_ + _He's but a Caterpillar drest_ + _The gaudy Fop's his Picture just,_ + + as _Poor Richard_ says. + + "But what Madness must it be to _run in Debt_ for these + Superfluities! We are offered, by the Terms of this + Vendue, _Six Months' Credit_; and that perhaps has + induced some of us to attend it, because we cannot + spare the ready Money, and hope now to be fine without + it. But, ah, think what you do when you run in Debt; + _you give to another Power over your Liberty_. If you + cannot pay at the Time, you will be ashamed to see your + Creditor; you will be in Fear when you speak to him; + you will make poor pitiful sneaking Excuses, and by + Degrees come to lose your Veracity, and sink into base + downright lying; for, as _Poor Richard_ says _The + second Vice is Lying, the first is running in Debt_. + And again, to the same Purpose, _Lying rides upon + Debt's Back_. Whereas a free-born _Englishman_ ought + not to be ashamed or afraid to see or speak to any Man + living. But Poverty often deprives a Man of all Spirit + and Virtue: _'Tis hard for an empty Bag to stand + upright_, as _Poor Richard_ truly says. + + "What would you think of that Prince, or that + Government, who should issue an Edict forbidding you to + dress like a Gentleman or a Gentlewoman, on Pain of + Imprisonment or Servitude? Would you not say, that you + were free, have a Right to dress as you please, and + that such an Edict would be a Breach of your + Privileges, and such a Government tyrannical? And yet + you are about to put yourself under that Tyranny, when + you run in Debt for such Dress! Your Creditor has + Authority, at his Pleasure to deprive you of your + Liberty, by confining you in Goal for Life, or to sell + you for a Servant, if you should not be able to pay + him! When you have got your Bargain, you may, perhaps, + think little of Payment; but _Creditors_, _Poor + Richard_ tells us, _have better Memories than Debtors_; + _and_ in another Place says, _Creditors are a + superstitious Sect, great Observers of set Days and + Times_. The Day comes round before you are aware, and + the Demand is made before you are prepared to satisfy + it, Or if you bear your Debt in Mind, the Term which at + first seemes so long, will, as it lessens, appear + extreamly short. _Time_ will seem to have added Wings + to his Heels as well as Shoulders. _Those have a short + Lent_, saith _Poor Richard_, _who owe Money to be paid + at Easter_. Then since, as he says, _The Borrower is a + Slave to the Lender, and the Debtor to the Creditor_, + disdain the Chain, preserve your Freedom; and maintain + your Independency; Be _industrious_ and _free_; be + _frugal_ and _free_. At present, perhaps, you may think + yourself in thriving Circumstances, and that you can + bear a little Extravagance without Injury; but, + + _For Age and Want, save while you may;_ + _No Morning Sun lasts a whole Day._ + + as _Poor Richard_ says. Gain may be temporary and + uncertain, but ever while you live, Expence is constant + and certain; and _'tis easier to build two Chimnies, + than to keep one in Fuel_, as _Poor Richard_ says. So, + _Rather go to Bed supperless than rise in Debt_. + + _Get what you can, and what you get hold;_ + _'Tis the Stone that will turn all your lead into Gold,_ + + as _Poor Richard_ says. And when you have got the + Philosopher's Stone, sure you will no longer complain + of bad Times, or the Difficulty of paying Taxes. + + "This Doctrine, my Friends, is _Reason_ and _Wisdom_; + but after all, do not depend too much upon your own + _Industry_, and _Frugality_, and _Prudence_, though + excellent Things, for they may all be blasted without + the Blessing of Heaven; and therefore, ask that + Blessing humbly, and be not uncharitable to those that + at present seem to want it, but comfort and help them. + Remember, _Job_ suffered, and was afterwards + prosperous. + + "And now to conclude, _Experience keeps a dear School, + but Fools will learn in no other, and scarce in that_; + for it is true, _we may give Advice, but we cannot give + Conduct_, as _Poor Richard_ says: However, remember + this, _They that won't be counselled, can't be helped_, + as _Poor Richard_ says: and farther, That, _if you will + not hear Reason, she'll surely rap your Knuckles_." + + Thus the old Gentleman ended his Harangue. The People + heard it and approved the Doctrine, and immediately + practised the contrary, just as if it had been a common + Sermon; for the Vendue opened, and they began to buy + extravagantly, notwithstanding, his Cautions and their + own Fear of Taxes. I found the good Man had thoroughly + studied my Almanacks, and digested all I had dropt on + these Topicks during the Course of Five and twenty + Years. The frequent Mention he made of me must have + tired any one else, but my Vanity was wonderfully + delighted with it, though I was conscious that not a + tenth Part of the Wisdom was my own, which he ascribed + to me, but rather the _Gleanings_ I had made of the + Sense of all Ages and Nations. However, I resolved to + be the better for the Echo of it; and though I had at + first determined to buy Stuff for a new Coat, I went + away resolved to wear my old One a little longer. + _Reader_, if thou wilt do the same, thy Profit will be + as great as mine, _I am, as ever, thine to serve thee_, + + RICHARD SAUNDERS. + +Imperfect as this chapter is, it is adequate enough, we hope, to make the +reader feel that Sydney Smith was not altogether insensible to natural +obligations when he told his daughter that he would disinherit her, if she +did not admire everything written by Franklin. + + +SUMMARY + +Such was Benjamin Franklin, as mirrored for the most part in his own +written and oral utterances. Whether his fame is measured by what he +actually accomplished, or by the impression that he made upon his +contemporaries, or by the influence that he still exercises over the human +mind, he was a truly great man.[59] Not simply because he was one of the +principal actors in a revolutionary movement destined to establish in the +free air of the Western World on lasting foundations, and on a scale of +moral and material grandeur, of which history furnishes few examples, a +state, without king, noble or pontiff, and deriving its inspiration and +energy solely from the will of the People; nor yet merely because his +brilliant discoveries in the province of electricity conspicuously helped +to convert one of the most elusive and defiant of all the forces of nature +into an humble and useful drudge of modern industry and progress; nor yet +merely because, in addition to many other productions, marked by the +indefinable charm of unerring literary intuition, he wrote several which +are read in every part of the globe where a printed page is read; nor even +because of all these things combined. They are, of course, the main pillars +upon which his splendid fame rests. But what imparts to Franklin his aspect +of greatness, and endows him with his irresistible appeal to the interest +and admiration of the whole human race is the striking extent to which he +was, in point of both precept and example, representative of human +existence in all its more rational, more fruitful and more sympathetic +manifestations. His vision was not that of the enthusiast; his was no +Pentecostal tongue--cloven and aflame. He took little account of the higher +spiritual forces which at times derange all the sober, prudent calculations +of such a materialist as Poor Richard, and his message to mankind was +blemished, as we have seen, by the excessive emphasis placed by it upon +pecuniary thrift and the relations of pecuniary thrift to sound morals as +well as physical comfort. But all the same, limited to the terrestrial +horizon as he is, he must be reckoned one of the great leaders and teachers +of humanity. He loved existence, shared it joyously and generously with his +fellow-creatures, and vindicated its essential worth by bringing to bear +upon everything connected with the conduct of life the maxims of a serene +and almost infallible wisdom, and by responding with a mind as completely +free from the prejudices and errors of his age as if he had lived a hundred +years later, and with a heart as completely unconstrained by local +considerations as if men were all of one blood and one country, to every +suggestion that tended to make human beings happier, more intelligent and +worthier in every respect of the universe which he found so delightful. It +is this harmony with the world about him, this insight into what that world +requires of everyone who seeks, to make his way in it, this enlightenment, +this sympathy with human aspirations and needs everywhere, together with +the rare strain of graphic and kindly instruction by which they were +accompanied that cause the name of Franklin to be so often associated with +those of the other great men whose fame is not the possession of a single +class or land, but of all mankind. The result is that, when the faces of +the few individuals, who are recognized by the entire world as having in +the different ages of human history rendered service to the entire world, +are ranged in plastic repose above the shelves of some public library or +along the walls of some other institution, founded for the promotion of +human knowledge or well-being, the calm, meditative face of Franklin is +rarely missing. + +It is to be regretted that a character so admirable and amiable in all +leading respects as his, so strongly fortified by the cardinal virtues of +modesty, veracity, integrity and courage, and so sweetly flavored with all +the finer charities of human benevolence and affection, should in some +particulars have fallen short of proper standards of conduct. But it is +only just to remember that the measure of his lapses from correct conduct +is to be mainly found in humorous license, for which the best men of his +own age, like Dr. Price and Charles Carroll of Carrollton, had only a +laugh,[60] and in offences against sexual morality, which, except so far as +they assumed in his youth the form of casual intercourse with low women, +whose reputations were already too sorely injured to be further wounded, +consisted altogether in the adoption by a singularly versatile nature of a +foreign code of manners which imposed upon the members of the society, by +which it was formed, the necessity of affecting the language of gallantry +even when gallantry itself was not actually practised. There is at any rate +no evidence to show that the long married life of Franklin, so full of +domestic concord and tenderness, was ever sullied by the slightest +violation of conjugal fidelity. + +On the whole, therefore, it is not strange that, repelled as we are at +times by some passing episode or revelation in his life or character, +everyone who has lingered upon his career finds it hard to turn away from +it except with something akin to the feelings of those friends who clung to +him so fondly. He was so kind, so considerate, so affectionate, so eager to +do good, both to individuals and whole communities, that we half forget the +human conventions that his bountiful intellect and heart overflowed. Of him +it can at least be said that, if he had some of a man's failings, he had +all of a man's merits; and his biographer, in taking leave of him, may +well, mindful of his eminent virtues as well as of his brilliant +achievements and services, waive all defence of the few vulnerable features +of his life and conduct by summing up the final balance of his deserts in +the single word engraved upon the pedestal of one of his busts in Paris at +the time of his death. That word was "Vir"--a Man, a very Man. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[56] What Sir Walter Scott said of Jonathan Swift is as true of Franklin: +"Swift executed his various and numerous works as a carpenter forms wedges, +mallets, or other implements of his art, not with the purpose of +distinguishing himself, by the workmanship bestowed on the tools +themselves, but solely in order to render them fit for accomplishing a +certain purpose, beyond which they were of no value in his eyes." + +[57] There is the following reference to Nanny in a letter from Franklin to +Deborah, dated June 10, 1770, "Poor Nanny was drawn in to marry a worthless +Fellow, who got all her Money, and then ran away and left her. So she is +return'd to her old Service with Mrs. Stevenson, poorer than ever, but +seems pretty patient, only looks dejected." + +[58] These conclusions about physical exercise had been previously +expounded by Franklin to his son in a letter, dated Aug. 19, 1772, in which +he expressed his concern at hearing that William was not well. In that +connection they do not seem quite so pedantic. The writer thought that, +when tested by the amount of corporeal warmth produced, there was, roughly +speaking, more exercise in riding one mile on horseback than five in a +coach, more in walking one mile on foot than five on horseback, and more in +walking one mile up and down stairs than five on a level floor. He also had +a good word to say for the use of the dumb-bell as a "compendious" form of +exercise; stating that by the use of dumb-bells he had in forty swings +quickened his pulse from sixty to one hundred beats in a minute, counted by +a second watch. Warmth, he supposed, generally increased with a rapid +pulse. Upon one occasion in France, when John Adams told him that he +fancied that he did not exercise so much as he was wont, he replied: "Yes, +I walk a league every day in my chamber. I walk quick, and for an hour, so +that I go a league; I make a point of religion of it." + +[59] In the judgment of Matthew Arnold, Franklin was "a man who was the +very incarnation of sanity and clear sense, a man the most considerable, it +seems to me, whom America has yet produced." + +[60] In his _Jeu d'esprit_, commonly known as _The Choice of a Mistress_, +Franklin gave various reasons why an elderly mistress should be preferred +to a younger one; and, in a letter to him on Aug. 12, 1777, Charles Carroll +of Carrollton, after expressing the hope that he continued to enjoy his +usual health and the flow of spirits, which contributed to make the jaunt +to Canada so agreeable to his fellow-travellers, adds: "Mr. John Carroll, +and Chase are both well; the latter is now at Congress, and has been so +fully and constantly employed that I believe he has not had leisure to +refute your reasons in favor of the old ladies." + + + + +INDEX + + +A + +A Letter from China, i., 95; ii., 487 + +Abuse of the Press, ii., 488 + +Account of the Negotiation in London for effecting a Reconciliation between +Great Britain and her American Colonies, ii., 446 + +Account of the New-Invented Pennsylvanian Fireplaces, i., 15, 358; + ii., 8, 401, 424 + +Account of the Supremest Court of Judicature of Pennsylvania, i., 342; + ii., 489 + +Adams, Abigail, i., 492; + ii., 232 + +Adams, John, i., 6, 35, 61, 149, 161, 284, 480, 483, 484, 486; + ii., 6 (note), 8, 7 (note), 96, 220 (note), 237, 241, 242, 244, 245, 246, +252, 252 (note), 256, 257, 257 (note), 258 (note), 259, 261, 263, 274, 278, +287, 288, 290, 291, 294, 312, 316, 319, 320, 322, 342, 414, 443, 483 (note) + +Adams, John Quincy, i., 486 + +Adams, Miss, i., 478, 485, 488, 493; + ii., 9 + +Address of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, +ii., 454 + +Advice to a Young Tradesman, ii., 455 + +Albany Congress, ii., 141 + +Alexander, Miss (Mariamne Williams), i., 211, 469, 542 (note) + +Alexander, William, i., 469, 495 + +Alison, Francis, Vice-Provost, i., 131 + +Allen, Chief Justice William, i., 170, 174, 337 + +Alleyne, John, i., 105, 442 + +American Philosophical Society, i., 128 (note) + +Answers to Strahan's Queries, ii., 446 + +Apology for Printers, i., 93; + ii., 464, 465 + +Arabian Tale, i., 73 + +Argo, The, i., 146 + +Arnold, Matthew, ii., 527 (note) + +Art of Procuring Pleasant Dreams, i., 412, 489 + +Art of Virtue, i., 29, 34, 98, 521 + +Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion, i., 72, 113 + +Austin, Jonathan Loring, ii., 250 + +Autobiography, i., 16, 19, 22, 343, 349, 432, 531, 537; + ii., 27, 35, 424, 441, 499 + + +B + +Babcock, Dr. Joshua, ii., 172 + +Bache, Benjamin Franklin, i., 45, 238, 239, 241, 255, 256, 258, 259, 260, +261, 262, 266, 388, 390, 406, 486 + +Bache, Richard, i., 46, 212, 236, 237, 238, 239, 254, 257, 259, 262, 263, +300, 349, 390, 481; + ii., 24, 349 (note) + +Bache, Sally, i., 37, 38, 70, 71, 99, 103, 110, 212, 225, 228, 235, 238, +240, 241, 243, 244, 246, 248, 253, 254, 255, 255 (note), 257, 259, 260, +261, 263, 264, 265, 266, 272, 273, 287, 340, 373, 393; + ii., 277, 494 + +Bache, William, i., 257, 260, 261 + +Baker, Speech of Polly, ii., 467 + +Balzac, Honoré de, ii., 16 (note) + +Bancroft, Dr. Edward, i., 542 (note); + ii., 221, 224, 250 + +Bancroft, George, i., 542 (note) + +Banks, Sir Joseph, i., 107, 154; + ii., 378, 384, 385, 386, 392 + +Barclay, David, i., 423 + +Barclay, Thomas, ii., 296, 315 (note) + +Bard, Dr. and Mrs. John, i., 4, 332, 333; + ii., 43 + +Bartram, John, i., 35, 146, 334, 421; + ii., 23 + +Baskerville, John, ii., 15 + +Bathurst, Lord and Lady, i., 224 + +Baynes, John, ii., 7 (note), 348 + +Beatty, Rev. Mr., i., 93 + +Beccaria, Giambatista, ii., 22, 378, 400 + +Benezet, Anthony, i., 347 + +Benger, Elliot, i., 174 + +Bentham, Jeremy, ii., 221, 223, 225 + +Bigelow, John, i., 24, 37, 540 + +Bingham, Mr. Wm., ii., 283 + +Blount, Dorothea, i., 380, 386, 391, 454 + +Bond, Dr. Thomas, i., 140, 145, 180, 246, 331, 420 + +Boston, City of, i., 8, 151, 312 + +Boufflers, Madame de, i., 479 (note) + +Bouquet, Col. Henry, i., 95, 340; + ii., 21 + +Bourbon, Don Gabriel de, ii., 236 + +Bowdoin, James, i., 352, 353, 354; + ii., 203, 218, 230, 383, 403 + +Braddock, General, i., 177 + +Bradford, Andrew, ii., 21, 37, 62, 69, 74, 75, 88 + +Bradford, William, ii., 35, 37 + +Breintnal, Joseph, i., 180, 326; + ii., 67 + +Bridgen, Edward, i., 442 + +Brillon, Madame, i., 19, 47, 92, 229, 265, 478, 487, 494, 500, 529, 540; + ii., 22, 476, 478, 481, 484 + +Brillon, M., i., 485 + +Brougham, Lord, ii., 227 (note), 362 + +Broughton, Sarah, i., 214 + +Brown, Dr., i., 99 + +Brownell, George, i., 138; + ii., 28 + +Brownrigg, William, ii., 392 + +Buffon, Comte de, i., 530; + ii., 379 + +Burke, Edmund, i., 20, 116, 442, 443; + ii., 1, 195, 221, 223, 224 + +Byles, Mather, i., 264, 354 + + +C + +Cabanis, Pierre Jean Georges, i., 488, 491 + +Cadross, Lord, ii., 408 + +Camden, Lord, ii., 195, 210 + +Canada Pamphlet, ii., 439, 444 + +Canton, John, i., 438 + +Capefigue, i., 21 (note) + +Carlyle, Alexander, i., 38 + +Carlyle, Thomas, i., 11, 303 (note) + +Carmichael, Wm., i., 322, 485, 500; + ii., 5, 257, 260, 263, 268, 274, 330 (note), 476 + +Carroll of Carrollton, Charles, i., 321; + ii., 237, 241, 331 (note), 529 + +Carroll, John, i., 321; + ii., 238, 240, 529 (note) + +Cats, The Very Humble Petition to Madame Helvétius from her, i., 488, 497 + +Causes of the American Discontents, ii., 189 + +Chastellux, Marquis de, i., 263, 503, 530, 532 + +Chatham, Lord, i., 20, 438; + ii., 98, 180, 183, 195, 208, 210, 223, 229 + +Chaumont, M. Donatien LeRay de, i., 479, 515, 532; + ii., 25, 249, 250, 263 + +Chaumont, Madame Donatien LeRay de, i., 482 + +Chaumont, Donatien LeRay de (the younger), i., 481 + +Chess, Essay on the Morals of, i., 516; + ii., 491 + +Choice of a Mistress, ii., 529 (note) + +Christ Church, Philadelphia, i., 23, 70, 130, 170, 346, 363 + +Cincinnati, Franklin's letter on the, ii., 494 + +Clapham, Col., i., 188 + +Clare, Lord, ii., 338 (note) + +Clifton, John, i., 145 + +Clinton, Gov. George, i., 170 + +Cochin, ii., 359 (note) + +Colden, Cadwallader, i., 15; + ii., 79, 90, 382, 407, 408 + +Coleman, William, i., 246, 326; + ii., 64, 64 (note), 66 + +Collas, Mr., i., 298 + +Collins, John, i., 90, 160, 200, 323; + ii., 35, 58, 428 + +Collinson, Peter, i., 123, 124, 133, 178, 180, 361, 449; + ii., 17, 23, 123, 126, 137, 150, 151, 152, 154, 192, 342, 352, 353, 354, +356, 357, 361, 362, 367, 368, 371, 372, 375, 378, 381, 397, 398, 416 + +Committee of Correspondence in Massachusetts, ii., 205 + +Comparison of the Conduct of the Ancient Jews and the Anti-Federalists, +ii., 489 + +Condorcet, Marquis de, i., 530; + ii., 350 + +Conte, i., 64 + +Conway, Madame, i., 43 (note) + +Conygham, Capt. Gustavus, ii., 283, 297, 298 + +Cook, Capt. James, i., 154 + +Cool Thoughts, ii., 102, 128 + +Coombe, Rev. Thomas, i., 81, 346 + +Cooper, Dr. Samuel, i., 21, 352, 353, 472, 486; + ii., 25, 165, 170, 182, 203, 212, 218, 228, 250, 267, 341, 414 + +Council of Brutes, The, i., 440 + +Courant, The Boston, i., 83, 357; + ii., 30, 31, 85, 429, 434 + +Craven Street Gazette, i., 372; + ii., 468 + +Croghan, George, i., 182; + ii., 418 + +Cushing, Thomas, i., 405, 470; + ii., 81, 170, 172, 175, 191, 199, 203, 204, 210, 213, 218, 219, 229, 261 +(note) + +Cutler, Dr. Manasseh, i., 226; + ii., 7 + + +D + +D'Alibard, Thomas Francis, i., 474; + ii., 354, 355, 383 + +Danforth, Samuel, i., 355 + +Dartmouth, Lord, ii., 215 + +Davenport, Josiah, i., 217, 271, 286, 311 + +Davenport, Sarah, i., 286, 301 + +Davy, Sir Humphry, ii., 361 + +Deane, Silas, i., 318, 322, 334; + ii., 237, 249, 250, 255 (note), 262, 263 (note), 265, 306 + +DeForbach, Madame, i., 528 + +DeLancey, James, ii., 142 + +Denham, Mr., ii., 43, 44, 45, 50, 52 + +Denny, Gov. William, i., 204; + ii., 112, 120, 122, 155 + +DeNeufville, ii., 294 + +DeSaussure, M., ii., 414 + +D'Houdetot, Comtesse, i., 487, 522 + +Dialogue between Franklin and the Gout, i., 501; + ii., 472, 481 + +Dialogue between Philocles and Horatio, i., 32; + ii., 464 + +Dialogue between X Y and Z, i., 184 + +Dick, Sir Alexander, i., 463, 466; + ii., 403 + +Dick, Lady, i., 464 + +Dickinson, John, ii., 128, 136, 137, 233, 234, 247, 333, 334 + +Digges, Thomas, i., 408; + ii., 303 + +Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, i., 87, 90, 202; + ii., 435 + +Doniol, Henri, i., 542 (note) + +Dove, Mr., i., 136 + +Dowse, Elizabeth, i., 280, 281, 304 + +Drinkers' Dictionary, i., 160 + +Dubourg, Dr. Barbeu, i., 474, 530, 533; + ii., 237, 274, 412 + +Dumas, Chas. W. F., i., 155; + ii., 236, 259 (note) + +Dunbar, Col., i., 182 + +Dunning, John, ii., 221, 222, 223 + +DuPont (DeNemours), i., 474, 530, 533; + ii., 274 + + +E + +Economical Project, ii., 472, 485 + +Edict by the King of Prussia, ii., 436, 446 + +Editor of a Newspaper, To the, i., 401; + ii., 188 + +Elective Franchises Enjoyed by the Small Boroughs in England, ii., 454 + +Eliot, Jared, i., 131, 335, 356; + ii., 24, 344, 416 + +Ephemera, The, i., 500; + ii., 472, 476 + +Epitaph by Franklin on himself, i., 114 + +Evans, Cadwallader, i., 311, 342, 343, 348; + ii., 184, 202, 346, 409 + +Evans, Lewis, i., 220 (note) + +Exporting of Felons to the Colonies, ii., 464, 467 + + +F + +Falconer, Capt. Nathaniel, i., 311, 401, 476 + +Father Abraham's Speech, ii., 517 + +Fisher, Daniel, i., 215, 216, 229 + +Fisher, Mary, i., 15, 303 + +Fisher, Sydney George, i., 36; + ii., 4 (note) + +Flainville, Mlle., i., 43 (note), 528, 529 + +Folger, Peter, i., 268, 269, 270, 270 (note) + +Ford, Paul Leicester, i., 2; + ii., 92 + +Fothergill, Dr. John, i., 242, 252, 320, 391, 421; + ii., 118, 119, 126, 230, 354 + +Foucault, Madame, i., 482 + +Fox, Charles James, ii., 221, 224, 227 (note) + +Foxcroft, John, i., 43, 213, 312, 346; + ii., 81 + +Foxcroft, Mrs. John, i., 43 + +Francis, Tench, i., 129 + +Franklin, Abiah, i., 13, 37, 78, 85, 266, 268, 270, 271, 272; + ii., 41 + +FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN: + _General Comments on his Life and Character_ + Wrote for purely practical reasons, i., 4. + Stands out from both European and American backgrounds, 9. + His shortcomings, 18. + Atoned for his early offences, 26. + Summary of his career and character, ii., 527. + _His Moral Standing and System_ + Not covetous, i., 12. + Unselfish relations to patents, 15. + Candor of Autobiography responsible for almost every blemish on his + reputation, 17, 22. + Attacks on his character, 17, 21 (note). + Coarser side of his character, 17. + Contemporary tributes to his moral worth, 18. + His prudential view of morality, 23, 31. + Real extent of his moral offences, 24, 34. + Had no objection to repeating his life, 24, 112, 113. + Motives back of Autobiography, 25. + Atoned for his offences, 26. + System of Morals adopted by him, 26. + Story of the axe, 27. + Observations on vanity, 28. + Freedom from dogmatism, 28. + His cheerful disposition, 29, 112. + Art of Virtue, 29, 97, 98. + United Party for Virtue, 31. + Society of the Free and Easy, 31. + His relations to eating and drinking, 35, 385. + His standing in point of sexual morality, 35, 204. + William Franklin, his natural son, 37. + Franklin's contentment with his life, 42 (note). + Supposed natural daughter, 43. + William Temple Franklin, his natural grandson, 44. + Story of the crying boy and the grandmother, 44. + _His Religious Views_ + Gratitude to God, i., 51. + Faith in Providence, 52. + Confidence in a future state, 53. + Utterances about death and sleep, 57. + Saying about orthodoxy, 58. + Want of sympathy with purely theological and sectarian side of + religion, 58, 63, 68, 78, 88. + A trustee to hold Whitefield meeting-house, 59. + Early doubts, 60. + Impartial attitude towards sects, 61. + Relations to Whitefield, 61. + His Conte, 65. + Letter to Weems and Gantt, 65. + Views about heretics, 67. + About bigotry, 67. + Rev. Mr. Hemphill, 69. + Comments on sermons, 70. + Connection with Christ Church, Philadelphia, 70. + Habits as to church attendance, 70, 71. + His Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion, 71. + Collaboration with Le Despencer in the reform of the Book of Common + Prayer, 74. + Suggestion about prayers in Federal Convention, 78. + Views about practical religion, 78. + Effect of early environment on his beliefs, 82. + Attacks of Courant on intolerance, 83. + Youthful skepticism, 84, 85. + Falls asleep in Quaker meeting-house, 84. + London nun, 86. + Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, 87. + Picture of Christ mentioned by Parson Weems, 88. + Miraculous element in Religion foreign to his nature, 88. + Purely practical character of his relations to Religion, 89. + Recession from youthful skepticism, 90. + Latterday beliefs as expressed to Madame Brillon and Ezra Stiles, 91. + Priestley's comments on his Christianity, 92. + His jests at the expense of the clergy and religion, 93. + Lack of reality about his religious faith but no scoffer, 97. + Injunctions to his wife and daughter about church attendance, 99. + Dr. Brown's travesty on Bible, 99. + Strictures by Franklin on letter against doctrine of special + providence, 100. + _As Philanthropist and Citizen_ + Observation on escape from shipwreck, i., 102. + Humorous remarks on workings of human reason, 103. + Eager interest in increase of his species, 103. + Aversion to war, 107. + Comments on existence of evil in the world, 107 (note). + His freedom from misanthropy, 111. + Lines on Landlord of Life and Time, 113. + His famous epitaph, 114. + His desire to revisit world after death, 115. + Nothing less than a Friend of Man, 116. + Termed "lover of his species" by Burke, 116. + Indebtedness to Mather's Essays to do Good, 117. + Character of doer of good that most highly prized by him, 117. + His saying, that power of one man for doing good is prodigious, 117. + The Junto, 117. + The Philadelphia City Library, 122. + His comments on importance of modesty in promoting public objects, 122. + The Philadelphia City Watch, 125. + The Philadelphia Fire Company, 126. + The Philadelphia Academy, 127, 128. + The Philadelphia Philosophical Society, 127. + His opposition to Latin and Greek, 137. + His pedagogic insight, 138. + His early education, 138. + His bequest to schools of Boston, 138 (note). + His self-education, 139. + His observations on proper methods of teaching languages, 140. + The Philadelphia Hospital, 140. + Advice to Rev. Gilbert Tennent to solicit from everybody, 142. + Paving projects, 143. + Remarks on triviality of origin of human felicity, 144. + Philadelphia City lighting, 145. + Significance of Franklin's services to Philadelphia, 146. + Suggests voyage of the Argo to the Arctics, 146. + Efforts in behalf of Kalm and Bartram, the naturalists, 146. + Efforts in behalf of silk culture, 146. + Gifts to Philadelphia hospital, 147. + Purchases for and gifts to Harvard College, 147. + Services in connection with negro emancipation, the free blacks, the + Bray Fund and the Society for benefit of poor Germans, 147. + Comments on Germans in Pennsylvania, 147, 148 (note). + Introduces yellow willow and rhubarb plant, 148. + Disseminates broom-corn seed, 148. + Proves value of plaster, 148. + Suggests insurance against storms, etc., 148. + Essay on Maize, 149. + John Adams' story of the grapevines, 149. + Franklin's prayer that he might be useful to his fellow-creatures, 150. + His trick for doing much with little money, 150. + His posthumous benefactions to Boston and Philadelphia, 151. + Breadth of his philanthropy, 153. + Supports plan for supplying New Zealand with certain quadrupeds, 153. + Protects Capt. Cook, 154. + Also Moravian Mission vessel, 155. + Also Irish ship for West Indian relief, 155. + Enforces rule "free ships, free goods," 155. + Approves exemption of non-combatants from penalties of war, 155. + Stipulation against privateering in Prussian Treaty, 156. + Detestation of privateering, 156. + Franklin no Quaker or visionary, 157. + Story of Logan and William Penn, 157. + Physical characteristics of Franklin, 158. + Youthful love of water, 158. + Story of the purloined building stones and Josiah Franklin's lecture, + 159. + Was a boxing boy, 159 (note). + Adventure on the Isle of Wight, 159. + How he punished Collins, 160. + His firmness of character, 161. + Letter of rebuke to Capt. Landais, 162. + Circumstances which produced Plain Truth, 163. + Results of this pamphlet, 169. + Journey to New York in quest of cannon, 170. + Close relations at this time with Governor and Council, 171. + Draws up fast proclamation, 171. + Bearing of Quakers in regard to defence of Pennsylvania, 171. + Advice of young man to Franklin to resign his office as Clerk to + Assembly, 172. + Franklin as an office-holder, 172. + Forehandedness about office in keeping with his advice to grandson, + 174 (note). + Real extent of opposition of Quakers to defensive warfare, 174. + Relations of Franklin and his son to Braddock expedition, 177. + Pusillanimous conduct of Col. Dunbar, 182. + Dunbar violates promise to return servants, 183. + Franklin's Militia Bill, 183. + Dialogue between X Y and Z, 184. + Governor offers to make Franklin a general, 185. + Takes charge of N. W. frontier of Pennsylvania, 185. + Incidents on his way to and at Gnadenhutten, 186. + Returns to Philadelphia and is elected Colonel, 188. + His regiment and experiences as Colonel, 189. + Summary of military services of Franklin, 190. + Massacre of Indians by Paxton Boys and its denunciation by Franklin, + 191. + _His Family Relations_ + Generous conduct to his brother James, i., 198. + And to James' son, 199. + Story of Franklin and Deborah, 205. + Their marriage, 211. + Her helpfulness to him, 211. + Advises her not to make an expensive wedding for their daughter Sally, + 212. + Letter of rebuke from him to her, 213. + Deborah and Sarah Broughton's charges, 214. + Incidents relating to Deborah told by Daniel Fisher in his Diary, 215. + Later improved relations between Deborah and William Franklin, 217, + 218. + Resolute conduct of Deborah when house threatened, 217. + Devotion of Deborah to Franklin, 219, 221. + Her illiteracy, 220, 222, 223. + Supplies sent by her to Franklin when absent, 223. + Absences of Franklin from her, 224. + Her aversion to the sea, 224. + Transatlantic voyages of Franklin, 224 (note). + Efforts of Strahan to get Deborah to England, 225, 227. + Early correspondence between Strahan and Franklin as to the latter's + daughter Sally, 225. + Personal appearance of this daughter, 226. + Affection of Franklin for Deborah, 228. + Loyalty to her irreproachable, 229. + Verses on his Plain Country Joan, 230. + References to Deborah in his letters to Catherine Ray, 231. + Correspondence between him and Deborah, 231. + References to his daughter in his letters to Deborah, 235. + Portrait of his daughter, 236 (note). + His son-in-law, Richard Bache, 236. + His grandson, Benjamin Franklin Bache, 238, 239, 240, 256, 258, 259, + 260, 261, 262, 266. + His godson, William Hewson, 239. + Other children of his daughter, 240. + Francis Folger, son of Franklin, 240. + "Franky" not his son, 240. + References to Deborah's relations in Franklin's letters to her, 241. + References to William Franklin in these letters, 241. + References to servants, 242. + References to Franklin's Pennsylvania friends, 244. + References to his new house, 245. + Exchanges of gifts between Franklin and Deborah, 246. + Gifts to his daughter, 248. + Familiarity with household affairs and articles, 249. + Occasional home-sickness, 250. + Illness when in England, 251. + Deborah's ill-health, 252. + Letters to his daughter and her husband, 253. + Letter from her to him about housekeeping for her mother, 255 (note). + Sally's hatred of South Carolinians, 259. + William Bache, Franklin's grandson, 260, 261. + Bequest of diamonds to Sally by Franklin, 261. + Appoints Richard Bache to office, 262. + On his return from his second mission he resided with the Baches, 261. + And after his return from France, 263. + Comments on Sally Bache by Marbois and De Chastellux, 263. + Domestic conditions surrounding Franklin towards his end, 263, 265. + Later relations between Franklin and his son William, 264, 264 (note). + Family of Sally Bache at close of Franklin's life, 265, 266. + Franklin's father and mother, 266. + Story told by his father, 268. + Franklin's grandfather, Peter Folger, 269. + The Folgers, 270. + Franklin's letters to his father and mother, 270. + Her letters to him, 272. + Letters to his sister Jane about their parents, 273. + Estate left by his father, 274. + Loving relations of Franklin with his kinsfolk, 274. + His uncles John and Thomas and grandfather Thomas, 274, 275. + His uncle Benjamin, 275. + This uncle's poetry books, 275. + And collection of pamphlets, 277. + Samuel Franklin, grandson of this uncle, 277. + Remaining relations of Franklin in England in 1767, 277. + His letter to a Franklin at Königsberg, 277. + Had exact account of Franklins from 1555, 278. + Observations on Jemmy Franklin, 278. + Bequest to his brother James' descendants, 279. + Franklin's four brothers who died young and his brother Josiah, 279. + His brothers John and Peter, 279, 280 (note). + His letter to Peter's widow, 280. + His brother Samuel, 280. + His sister Dowse, 280. + Wise and feeling letter about her, 280. + His sister Mrs. Holmes, 282. + His sister Lydia Scott, 282. + His sister Anne Harris and her descendants, 282. + Her daughter Grace Harris and her husband Jonathan Williams and her + sons, 283. + His sister Sarah Davenport, 286. + Letter from him to Josiah Davenport refusing him an office, 286. + Relations between him and his sister Jane Mecom and her family, 287. + Bequests by Franklin to members of his father's family, 301. + Relations between him and Deborah's family, 301. + Sharp letter to James Read, 301. + Franklin's interest in his ancestors, 302. + Notes on subject by his uncle Benjamin, 302. + Visit to his relation, Mary Fisher, in England, 303. + Old Tythes Book sent by Carlyle to Edw. Everett, 303 (note). + Thomas Franklin, 305. + Deborah's English relations, 306. + Sally Franklin and her father Thomas Franklin, of Lutterworth, 306. + Letter from Josiah Franklin about his ancestors, 307. + _His American Friends_ + Friends who accompanied him to Trenton, i., 310. + House full of friends on his return from England in 1762, 311. + Rejoicing over his safe return to England, 311. + His friends "along the Continent," 311. + Many friends in New England, 312. + Visits to Boston, 312. + Description of his return from New England in 1755, 312. + Accidents to Franklin, 312. + Friends in New York and New Jersey, 314. + Visits to Maryland and Virginia, 314. + Friends in Charleston, 315. + Dr. Garden, Dr. Lining, Henry Laurens and John Laurens, 315. + Death of John Laurens, 316 (note). + Relations between Franklin and Washington, 316. + Widespread fame of the two in America, 317 (note). + Relations between Franklin and Jefferson, 318. + Humorous stories about Franklin by Jefferson, 318, 321 (note). + Franklin and Charles Carroll of Carrollton, 321. + Franklin and John Carroll, 321. + Franklin and William Carmichael, 322. + James Ralph and other young Philadelphia friends of Franklin, 323. + Ralph's version of 18th Psalm, 324. + Comments of author on Ralph, 325 (note). + Junto friends, 326. + Hugh Roberts, 328. + Philip Syng, 330. + Samuel Rhoads, 330. + Luke Morris, 331. + Dr. Thomas Bond, 332. + Dr. John Bard, 332. + Dr. Benjamin Rush, 332. + Stories about Franklin by Dr. Rush, 333. + John Bartram, 334. + John Hughes, 336. + Thomas Hopkinson, 337. + Effect of Whitefield's eloquence on him, 338. + Francis Hopkinson, 338. + Col. Henry Bouquet, 340. + Lee and Izard, Franklin's only two enemies, 340. + Warning to his daughter about his enemies, 340. + Dr. Cadwallader Evans, 342. + Abel James and Thomas Wharton, 343. + Samuel Wharton, 343. + Ebenezer Kinnersley, 345. + John Foxcroft and Rev. Thos. Coombe, 346. + James Wright and Susannah Wright, 346. + Anthony Benezet, 347. + Joseph Galloway, 347. + James Logan, David Hall and Charles Thomson, 350. + David Rittenhouse, 350. + John Jay, 350. + Josiah Quincy, John Winthrop and Dr. Samuel Cooper, 352. + James Bowdoin, 352. + Young Josiah Quincy, 352. + Mather Byles, 354. + Samuel Danforth, 355. + Jared Eliot, 356. + Dr. Ezra Stiles, 362. + Dr. Samuel Johnson, 363, 364. + Jared Ingersoll, 364. + Catherine Ray, 364. + _His British Friends_ + Mrs. Margaret Stevenson, i., 372. + Polly Stevenson, 374. + Wm. Strahan, 392. + Jonathan Shipley, Bishop of St. Asaph's, 405. + Catherine Louisa Shipley, 407, 409, 410, 412, 417, 417 (note). + Georgiana Shipley, 407, 410, 413. + Anna Maria Shipley, 411, 412. + Dr. John Pringle, 415, 416, 417, 417 (note). + Dr. John Fothergill, 421. + David Barclay, 423. Franklin a "clubable" man, 424. + Dr. Price, 425. + Dr. Joseph Priestley, 429. + Benjamin Vaughan, 432. + Dr. John Hawkesworth and John Stanley, 437. + John Sargent, 438. + John Canton, 438. + Dr. Alexander Small, 439. + John Alleyne, 442. + Edward Bridgen, 442. + Edmund Burke, 443. + Mrs. Thompson, 442, 443. + John Whitehurst, 442, 445. + Anthony Tissington, 442, 445. + Thomas Viny, 442, 445. + Caleb Whitefoord, 442, 447, 447 (note). + Peter Collinson, 447. + Rev. George Whitefield, 447, 449. + David Hartley, 447, 456. + Ballad of Auld Robin Gray, 460. + The Farce, God-send or the Wreckers, 462. + George Whatley, 447, 463. + Lord LeDespencer, 447, 452. + James Hutton, 447, 453. + Sir Alexander Dick, 463. + Lady Alexander Dick, 464. + Lord Kames, 464. + Scotch social conditions in 1759, 464, 465. + David Hume, 467. + William Alexander, 469. + Mariamne Williams, wife of Jonathan Williams, Jr., 469. + Sir Edward Newenham, 469. + Richard Jackson, 470. + Gen. Horatio Gates, 470. + Gen. Charles Lee, 470, 471. + Benjamin West, 470, 471. + Mrs. Benjamin West, 472. + Raphael West, 472. + Mr. Mead, 472. + _His French Friends_ + Social life of Franklin in France, i., 473, 474. + His love of France and the French people, 476. + His opinion of the French people, 476. + DuPont De Nemours, 474, 530, 533. + D'Alibard, 474. + Dr. Barbeu Dubourg, 474, 530, 533. + Relations to French women, 477. + Franklin's residence at Passy, 479. + LeRay de Chaumont, 479. + LeRay de Chaumont, the younger, 481. + DeChaumont's family, 482. + Madame Foucault, 482. + Her kiss, 482. + Madame Chaumont, her comments on supposed attack of John Paul Jones + on an old woman, 482. + Her comment on the engagement of Mlle. + Passy to the Marquis de Tonnerre, 483. + Franklin's witty letter to the mother of this girl, 483. + Franklin's mode of life at Paris, 483. + His salary, 484. + His letter to John Adams about American criticism on his mode of life, + 484. + His hospitality at Passy, 485. + Dinners mentioned by Miss Adams, 485. + Story of the Abbé Raynal and American degeneracy, 485. + Letter from John Quincy Adams to Franklin, 486. + Franklin's visiting list, 486. + Entertainments attended by Franklin, 486. + Madame Helvétius, 487. + Madame Brillon, 487, 500. + Comtesse D'Houdetot, 487, 522. + Fête Champêtre, 523. + Jean Georges Cabanis, 488. + Abbé Morellet, 488. + Abbé de la Roche, 488. + Abbé Morellet's Very Humble Petition to Madame Helvétius from her Cats, + 488. + Letter to the Abbé de la Roche from Franklin with regard to Madame + Helvétius, 489. + The Journey to the Elysian Fields, 489. + Letters from Franklin to Cabanis, 491. + Description of Madame Helvétius by Abigail Adams, 492. + Comment by Miss Adams on Madame Helvétius, 493. + The Abbés, 496. + Feeling letters from Abbé Morellet to Franklin, 497, 498. + The Abbé Morellet's drinking song, 498. + The Abbé Morellet's observations on good rum, 499. + Franklin's drinking song, 499. + Essay on the Morals of Chess, 516. + Madame Jean Baptiste Le Roy, 526. + Jean Baptiste Le Roy, 527. + Pierre Le Roy, 528. + Charles Le Roy, 528. + David Le Roy, 528. + Madame Lavoisier, 528. + Madame de Forbach, 528. + Mlle. Flainville, 528, 529. + Buffon, 530. + Condorcet, 530. + Lafayette, 530. + Madame de Lafayette, 531. + Duc de la Rochefoucauld, 530, 531. + Lavoisier, 530, 532. + Chastellux, 530, 532. + Ferdinand Grand, 530, 532. + LeVeillard, 530, 537. + Madame LeVeillard, 537. + Jefferson's letter to LeVeillard about the Autobiography, 540. + Letter from LeVeillard to Franklin about Mesdames Helvétius and + Brillon, 540. + Letter from LeVeillard's daughter to Franklin, 541. + Dr. Jan Ingenhousz, 541. + Debt due him by Samuel Wharton, 541. + Mrs. Paschal, 542 (note). + Thomas Mifflin, 542 (note). + Wm. Hunter, 542 (note). + Thomas Pownall, 542 (note). + Mr. and Mrs. Jean Holker, 542 (note). + Monthieu, 542 (note). + Madame La Marck, 542 (note). + Dr. Edward Bancroft, 542 (note). + Marquis de Turgot, 542 (note). + _His Personal and Social Characteristics_ + Humorous observations on Vanity, i., 28. + Franklin's physique, 158. + Early eagerness of Franklin for the sea, 158. + Portraits of Franklin, 233 (note). + Sterner virtues of Franklin, ii., 1. + Statement of Franklin to Hancock that they must all hang together, 2. + Franklin slow to anger, 3. + His integrity, 3. + Description of Franklin by Dr. Cutler, 7. + His wit, 7. + His humor, 8. + Story of the powder cask, 9. + Story of the anchor, 9. + Story of the hot iron, 10. + Story of the Archbishop and the queen, 10. + The story of omnia vanitas, 11. + The story of the onions, 11. + Duelling story, 12. + His bon mots, 12. + His love of practical jokes, 15. + Remarks on man as a sociable being, 16. + Early Socratic method of arguing, 16. + Franklin's modesty and lack of dogmatism, i., 28; ii., 17. + His level-headedness, 18. + His dislike of disputation, 18. + Franklin a good listener, 19. + His amiable, generous disposition, i., 29; ii., 20, 22. + His love of games, 21. + His physical appetites, 21. + His fondness for music, 22. + His armonica. 22. + Cheerfulness under suffering, 22. + Benignity of mind, 23. + His habit of making gifts, 23. + His loyalty in friendship, 24. + His interest in his friend's children, 25. + Franklin's physical exercises, 483 (note). + _As a Man of Business_ + General Comments on, ii., 26. + Main calling that of printer, 27. + Set as a boy to cutting wicks, 28. + Taken around among workmen by Josiah, 28. + Josiah makes a printer of him, 29. + Becomes apprentice to his brother, 29. + Nature of his brother's publications, 29. + James Franklin embroiled with magistracy, 30. + Courant issued in name of Franklin, 33. + Rubs between Franklin and his brother, 34. + Absconds from Boston, 35. + Passage from New York to New Jersey, 35. + Dr. Brown, the infidel, 36. + The kindly old woman at Burlington, 36. + Lands at Philadelphia, 36. + Falls asleep in Quaker Meeting-house, 37. + Puts up at the Crooked Billet, 37. + Calls on Andrew Bradford, 37. + Calls on Keimer, 37. + Keimer's printing outfit and elegy, 38. + Works for Bradford and Keimer, 39. + Is brought to the notice of Sir William Keith, 39. + Keith and Col. French call on him, 40. + Returns to Boston, 41. + Keith's promises, 41. + Continues at work with Keimer, 42. + Keith's continued deceit, 42, 43. + Sails for London, 43, 44. + Discovers Keith's perfidy, 44. + Makes a friend of Andrew Hamilton, 45. + And repays his kindness, 45. + Ralph a stumbling block to him in London, 45. + Franklin is employed at Palmer's, 46. + And at Watts', 46. + Relations to his fellow-printers in London, 47, 48. + Lodges with a Catholic widow, 49. + His skill as a swimmer, 49. + Is employed by Mr. Denham, 50. + Is invited by Sir Wm. Wyndham to teach his sons how to swim, 50. + Returns to Philadelphia and meets Keith on the street, 51. + Habits in London, 51 (note). + Mr. Denham dies, 52. + Franklin nearly dies, 52. + Story of Mr. Denham, 52. + Franklin goes back to Keimer, 53. + Keimer's other hands, 53. + Keimer benefits by Franklin's inventive faculty, 54. + Franklin quits Keimer, 55. + Meredith proposes partnership to Franklin, 56. + The latter is employed by Keimer again, 56. + And again proves very useful to him, 57. + New Jersey job, 57. + Story of Cotton Mather, 57. + Franklin attracts the attention of Governor Burnet, 58. + Acquires good will of prominent New Jersey men, 58. + Portrait of Keimer by Franklin, 59. + Prediction of Isaac Decow as to Franklin, 59. + Meredith and Franklin enter into partnership, 59. + First money earned by them, 60. + Samuel Mickle, the croaker, 60. + New firm helped by members of The Junto, 61. + Franklin's industry wins attention, 61. + Webb betrays Franklin, 62. + Franklin buys Keimer's newspaper, 62. + Franklin founds Pennsylvania Gazette, 63. + Its practical value to him, 63. + On the brink of ruin, 63. + Meredith a drunkard, 64. + Coleman and Grace come to Franklin's aid, 64, 64 (note). + Partnership of Meredith and Franklin dissolved, 65. + Franklin continues, 66. + Advocates more paper money, 66. + Secures paper money printing contracts, 67. + Opens up a stationery shop, 67. + Employs a compositor, 67. + Personal and business habits at this time, 67. + Keimer goes to Barbadoes, 68. + His railings at fortune, 68. + David Harry declines Franklin's offer of partnership, 69. + Franklin seeks a wife, 69. + Franklin's industry in business, 70. + His frugality, 70. + Establishes his Poor Richard's Almanac, 71. + Its success, 71. + Principles on which Franklin conducted the Pennsylvania Gazette, 71. + Extends his printing business, 72. + Establishes a German newspaper and a magazine, 74. + Latter project betrayed by John Webbe, 74. + Chosen Clerk of General Assembly and appointed Postmaster, 75. + Refuses to retaliate Bradford's meanness, 75. + Business value of office of Clerk, 75. + Conciliates a member of the Assembly, 76. + Business increases, 77. + Gazette profitable, 77. + Admits Hall to partnership, 77. + Terms of partnership, 78. + Business income of Franklin, 78. + Profits from the Gazette, 78. + Franklin's interest in art of printing, 78 (note). + Disagreement between him and Hall over a copyright, 79. + Franklin burns his fingers with the Stamp Tax, 80. + Appointed Comptroller of Post Office accounts, 80. + Appointed Deputy Postmaster-General, 80. + Success in managing Post Office, 81, 82. + Comments of Franklin on his removal from office of Postmaster, 81. + Gives Post Office patronage to relations, 83. + Income of Franklin from other sources than business, 83. + Appointed Postmaster General of the United States, 84. + Gift of land to him by State of Georgia, 84. + His estate at his death, 85. + Character of the Pennsylvania Gazette, 86. + Books published by Franklin, 90. + Sold other books, 91. + Miscellaneous side of his business, 91. + Sold bond servants and negroes, 92. + Mrs. Read's ointments, 93. + _As a Statesman_ + Appointed Clerk of General Assembly, ii., 95. + Appointed and elected to other offices including a seat in the + Assembly, 95. + Minor legislation in which he had a hand, 95 (note). + Lacking in fluency but spoke to the point, 96. + Influence very great in every Assembly in which he sat, 96. + Remarks on the importance of character to an orator, 97. + Political positions occupied by him, 97. + Not easily imposed on by mere glibness, but alive to eloquence like + that of Lord Chatham, 98. + Repeatedly re-elected to Assembly, 98. + Usually with the majority, 98 (note). + A true democrat, 98. + Detested arbitrary power, 99. + Conservative, yet liberal, 99. + Believed in universal suffrage and law of gavelkind, 100. + History of the conflict between the Proprietary and Popular Parties in + Pennsylvania, 100. + And reasons therefor, 101. + Value of the Penn Estate in Pennsylvania, 102, 102 (note). + Strictures of Franklin on the Proprietary Government, 102, 104, 107. + Traffic in legislation, 104. + Despicable conduct of the Proprietaries, 106. + Bitterness of the struggle between the Proprietaries and the Assembly, + 108. + Stand of the Quakers in the struggle, 108. + Franklin the leader of the Popular Party, 109. + His relations to Governors of Pennsylvania during the struggle, 109, + 110, 111, 112, 113, 114. + Story about a dinner at the house of Governor Morris, 110. + Reply of Shirley to Franklin at a banquet, 112. + Governor Denny brings over gold medal to Franklin, 112. + Plies Franklin with solicitations, 112. + Franklin appointed agent to go to England, 114. + Lord Loudon intervenes in the conflict, 114. + Vacillating conduct of Lord Loudon about sailing, 114. + "Always on horseback, and never rides on," said Innis, 115. + Long detention of Franklin at New York, 115. + Franklin's opinion of Lord Loudon, 117, 117 (note). + Loudon's reply to Franklin about filling his own pockets, 118. + Franklin arrives in London, 118. + Interview with Lord Granville, 118. + Meeting between Proprietaries and Franklin, 119. + Settlement of dispute with Proprietaries, 120. + Franklin thanks Assembly, 122. + His personal relations to the Proprietaries and their governors, 122. + Proprietary oppression, 124. + Governor Penn's dependence on Franklin, 126. + Letter to Dr. Fothergill from Franklin about the Proprietary, 127. + Factional dissensions in Pennsylvania, 127. + Popular conflict with Governor Penn, 127. + Franklin elected Speaker, 129. + Writes preface to Galloway's speech, 129. + Denunciation of Proprietaries by him, 130. + Lapidary attacks on Thomas and Richard Penn by him, 132. + Factious attacks on him in prose and verse, 133. + Franklin defeated at election, 135. + Franklin attacks fairness of the election, 136. + Wearies of political contentions, 137. + Recommends son of Thomas Penn to good will of Dickinson, 138. + Scathing comments by Franklin on Thomas Penn's meanness, 138. + Philadelphia merchants raise sum to send him abroad as agent, 140. + Pennsylvania feud sinks into the background, 140. + The Albany Congress, 141. + A day's journey under colonial conditions, 143 (note). + Letters from Franklin to Shirley on the colonial connection, 146. + Letter to James Parker from Franklin anticipating Albany Plan of Union, + 151. + Franklin and the Indians, 152. + Humorous stories about the Indians told by him, 157, 158 (note). + Distinction enjoyed by him in England during his first and second + missions, 162. + General relations to England before Revolution, 163, 164 (note). + Loyalty to England and its king, 163, 170. + Subsequent change of attitude, 168. + Willingness to accept office under the Duke of Grafton, 169. + His counsels of moderation, 170. + First of all an American, 171. + His gloomy pictures of Irish and Scotch conditions, 172. + Favorable view of American conditions taken by him as contrasted with + foreign, 171. + Parliamentary corruption, 174, 206. + Franklin's familiarity with American conditions, 177. + His foresight into the American future, 178, 191, 193, 204. + Misconstruction produced by his fairness during colonial contest, 178. + His view of legal tie between England and the Colonies and + Parliamentary supremacy, 178. + An imperialist, 182, 191. + Favored representation of Colonies in Parliament, but realized its + impracticability, 184, 187. + General position taken by Franklin in colonial contest, 185. + His relations to the Stamp Act, 187, 194, 206, 230. + English haughtiness towards, and ignorance of, Colonies, 188. + Misrepresentations by Colonial Governors, 189. + Economic restrictions on Colonies, 190. + Views in regard to the taxation of the Colonies, 192. + And in regard to English emigration, 192. + Influence exerted by Franklin as colonial agent, 194. + Impartiality of Franklin during colonial contest, 196. + Summary of argument addressed by him to the British and American + Public, 196. + His advice to the Colonies, 201. + His final sense of certainty of armed conflict, 205. + Comments on tea duty, 207. + Refusal to recognize Franklin as agent, 207, 211. + His comments on rejection of Chatham's plan, 208. + Draws up angry protest, 209. + Lord Sandwich attacks him as enemy of England, 210. + Franklin's relations to Hillsborough, 211. + His opinion of Lord Dartmouth, 216. + Wedderburn's tirade against Franklin, 222. + Efforts of Franklin after dismissal from office to avert war, 229. + He leaves England, 231. + His reputation at this time very high, 231. + Elected to Congress, 232. + His services in Congress, 232, 235, 241. + Made member of committee to visit Washington's camp, 234. + Early stand in favor of independence, 235. + Interviews French stranger, 235. + Made member of committee of secret correspondence with foreign friends + of America, 236. + His mission to Canada, 237. + His relations to the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of + Confederation, 241. + Devises seal, 242. + Offers lure to Hessians, 242. + Meets Lord Howe, 242. + Other services by Franklin at beginning of Revolution, 246. + His political hobbies, 249 (note). + Goes to France, 249. + Receives news of Burgoyne's surrender, 250. + Peculiar fitness of Franklin for French mission, 251. + Unfitness of his colleagues, 252. + Rubs between John Adams and Vergennes, 252. + Vergennes' opinion of John Adams, 253. + Comments on John Adams by Franklin, 253. + Jefferson's opinion of John Adams, 254 (note). + Vergennes' strictures on Arthur Lee and Izard, 255, 255 (note). + Vergennes' opinion of Franklin, 255. + Judgments on Arthur Lee, 255 (note). + Jay's dislike of the French, 256. + John Laurens comes to Paris, 256. + Deane's efficiency, 257 (note). + Inutility of Franklin's colleagues, 257, 273. + Testimony of John Adams as to tempers of Arthur Lee and Izard, 258 + (note). + Adams' vanity, 258 (note). + A young state should be like a young virgin, thought Franklin, 259 + (note). + Franklin not to blame for enmity of his colleagues, 259. + Causes of Lee's enmity to Franklin purely selfish, 260. + Arthur Lee's character, 262. + Jealousy of Franklin felt by Arthur Lee and Adams, 263, 263 (note). + Rebukes from Franklin to Arthur Lee, 264. + Disputatious and artful natures of Arthur and William Lee, 265. + Trunk entrusted to Franklin by William Lee, 266. + Franklin's opinion of Arthur Lee, 267. + His opinion of William Lee, 269. + Treacherous conduct of William Lee and Izard, 270. + Relations of Franklin to Izard, 271. + Izard's passionate temper, 272, 272 (note). + Enmity of colleagues ascribed by Franklin to envy, 274. + Franklin's first French friends, 274. + Franklin's fame when in France, 274. + His academic degrees, 274, 274 (note). + Special causes underlying fame of Franklin in France, 275, 276 (note), + 280. + Comments of Count Ségur on the American envoys, 276 (note). + John Adams' testimony to fame of Franklin, 278. + Meeting between Voltaire and Franklin, 278. + Apotheosis of Voltaire, 279. + Franklin's opinion of Vergennes, 280. + Jefferson on Franklin in France, 281. + History of pecuniary aids obtained by Franklin from France, 281. + His remark about the Mississippi, 285. + His relations to bills of exchange, 295. + To dispatches, 295. + Duty devolved on him of purchasing supplies and fitting out ships, 296. + This duty disagreeable to him, 296. + Was also a Judge in Admiralty, 297. + Success of American privateers, 297. + Franklin advises attacks on English cities, 298. + His relations to John Paul Jones, 299. + His efforts for the release of American prisoners, 300. + Rascality of Thomas Digges, 303. + Services by Thomas Wren to American prisoners, 304. + Pressure on Franklin for place in American army, 304. + Applications of Messrs. Lith and Pellion, 307. + Inquiries about America made of Franklin, 308. + Beset by beggars, 308. + Intense feelings aroused in Franklin by war, 309. + Hutton's mission to France, 309. + Pulteney's mission, 310. + Mission of Hartley and Hammond, 311. + Weissenstein's mission, 311. + Sir William Jones' mission, 313. + Audit of Franklin's accounts, 315 (note). + Adams' accusation of subserviency to the French against Franklin, 316. + Vergennes' persistency of character, 317 (note). + Comment of D'Aranda on M. de Maurepas and Vergennes, 317 (note). + Franklin justified in opposing signing of preliminary treaty of peace + without consent of Vergennes, 319. + Franklin's efforts to acquire Canada, 321. + Final treaty of peace signed, 329. + Franklin resigns, 329. + Returns to Pennsylvania and is further honored, 329. + Elected a member of Federal Convention of 1787, 329. + Jefferson's estimate of Franklin as a man, 330 (note). + Part taken by Franklin in the Convention of 1787, 330. + Reaction in his liberalism, 331 (note). + Franklin and paper currency, 336. + Franklin and free trade, 342. + Franklin and export duties, 345. + Franklin and pauperism, 345. + Franklin and agriculture, 346. + Franklin and the criminal laws, 347. + Franklin and imprisonment for debt, 348. + Franklin and slavery 348. + _As a Man of Science_ + Indifference to his inventions, i., 15. + Early interest of Franklin in science, ii., 350, 352. + Essentially a man of science, 351. + His three essays written at sea, 351. + Relations of Franklin to electricity, 352. + Qualifications of Franklin for scientific inquiry, 379. + Franklin's interest in balloons, 384. + Franklin's study of marsh gas and effect of oil on water, 390. + Franklin's inquiry into the effect of depth of water on speed and + navigation, 394. + His interest in the Gulf Stream, 395. + Franklin and pulse glasses, 396. + Inventions of Franklin, 396. + Franklin and magic squares, 397. + Franklin's alphabet and reform spelling, 398. + Franklin and the armonica, 400. + The Franklin stove, 401, 404. + Chimney, place improvements by Franklin, 403. + Franklin and smoky chimneys, 404. + Franklin and ventilation, 405. + Distraction to which Franklin was subject in the pursuit of science, + 406. + Cruder reflections of Franklin on scientific subjects 407. + Franklin's relations to medicine, 407. + Franklin and the dry bellyache, 408. + Franklin's ideas about colds, 410. + Franklin lectures John Adams on open windows, 414. + Franklin and waterspouts, whirlwinds and northeast storms, 415. + Franklin on light, 416. + Loose Thoughts on a Universal Fluid, 417. + Franklin on the conservation of matter, 417. + Franklin and the mastodon, 417. + Letter from Franklin to Gébelin on language variations, 418. + Franklin and astronomy, 419. + Franklin and refrigeration, 419. + Franklin and geology, 420. + Franklin and the physical convulsions of the earth, 421. + _As a Writer_ + Lost letters, i., 5. + Way to Wealth known to whole civilized globe, 13. + Franklin first American man of letters in the opinion of Hume, ii., + 423. + Franklin an author for practical purposes only, 423. + Indifference to his own writings, 424. + Franklin foresaw increased patronage of English authors, 425. + Manner in which he was educated, 425. + His early love of books, 426. + His ballads, 427. + His controversy with Collins, 428. + Means adopted by him to improve himself as a writer, 428. + Silence Dogood letters, 429. + Meets Governor Burnet, 434. + Forms acquaintance with Ralph and other lovers of reading in + Philadelphia, 434. + Love of books, 434. + Franklin's scruples about niceties of authorship and printing, 435. + Criticism of Hume on his use of words, 439. + Franklin's conception of good writing, 440. + Advice to Benjamin Vaughn as to writing, 440. + General character of Franklin's writings, 441. + His fable of the eagle and the hare, 443. + Canada pamphlet, 439, 444. + Papers written by Franklin on the Colonial controversy before his + return from his second mission to England, 446. + Effect of the Edict by the King of Prussia and its companion satire, + 447. + Letters to the Public Advertiser, 449. + Dialogue between Rodrigue and Fell, the apothecary, 449. + Copper plate engraving designed by Franklin, 450. + Papers written by Franklin in France to promote the American Cause, + 451. + His dialogue between Britain and other countries, 452. + Graver latter-day writings by Franklin, 454. + His papers on how to grow rich, 455. + Parable against Persecution, 456. + Parable on Brotherly Love, 456. + Papers contributed by Franklin to the Busybody and the Pennsylvania + Gazette, 457. + Speech of Polly Baker, 467. + Means of Disposing the Enemy to Peace, 468. + Craven Street Gazette, 468. + Petition of the Letter Z, 471. + Sale of the Hessians, 472. + Supplement to the Boston Independent Chronicle, 472, 474. + The Ephemera, 472, 476. + The Whistle, 472, 478. + His petite chanson à boire, 472, 479. + His letter to the Abbé Morellet on wine, 472, 480. + Dialogue between Franklin and the Gout, 472, 481. + Handsome and Deformed Leg, 472, 484. + Economical Project, 472, 485. + A Letter from China, 487. + Abuse of the Press, 488. + Comparison of the Conduct of the Ancient Jews and of the + Anti-Federalists, 489. + Account of the Supremest Court of Judicature in Pennsylvania, 489. + Speech of Sidi Mehemet Ibrahim against the Erika, 489. + Petition of the Left Hand, 490. + Morals of Chess, 491. + Franklin's letters, 492. + His letter on the Cincinnati, 494. + General observations on the history and contents of the Autobiography, + 499. + General observations on Poor Richard's Almanac, 503. + The Way to Wealth, or Father Abraham's Speech, 517 + +Franklin, Benjamin (Franklin's uncle), i., 60, 82, 275, 276, 277, 289, 304 + +Franklin College, Pa., i., 15 + +Franklin, Deborah, i., 52, 70, 88, 99, 103, 205, 211, 218, 224 (note), 290, +303, 306, 307, 314, 336, 346, 367, 372, 373, 423, 449, 489; + ii., 23, 45, 70, 79, 93, 470 (note) + +Franklin, Francis Folger, i., 70, 240 + +Franklin in France, by the Hales, ii., 6 (note) + +Franklin, James, i., 83, 199, 279, 301; ii., 29, 30, 41, 426, 427 + +Franklin, James, Jr., i., 199, 278, 279 + +Franklin, John (Franklin's brother), i., 53, 94, 274, 278, 279, 296 + +Franklin, John (Franklin's uncle), i., 274, 277 + +Franklin, Josiah (Franklin's father), i., 60, 78, 82, 85, 158, 159, 200, + 266, 267, 268, 270, 274, 304, 307; + ii., 28, 41, 428 + +Franklin, Josiah, Jr., i., 158, 276, 279 + +Franklin, Peter, i., 279, 280 (note); + ii., 83 + +Franklin, Sally (daughter of Thomas Franklin, of Lutterworth), i., 277, + 306; + ii., 469 + +Franklin, Samuel (Franklin's brother), i., 280, 301 + +Franklin, Samuel (son of Franklin's Uncle Benjamin), + ii., 29 + +Franklin, Samuel (grandson of Franklin's Uncle Benjamin), i., 275, 277 + +Franklin, Thomas (Franklin's uncle), i., 38, 275, 303, 305 + +Franklin, Thomas (Franklin's grandfather), i., 275 + +Franklin, Thomas (of Lutterworth), i., 277, 306 + +Franklin, William, i., 26, 36, 44, 48, 134, 173, 178, 216, 218, 236, 238, +241, 262, 264, 264 (note), 273, 295, 305, 337, 348, 375, 379, 393, 453, +474, 476; + ii., 82, 83, 98, 104 (note), 134, 166, 175, 177, 178, 181, 185, 207, 338 +(note), 436, 448, 483 (note) + +Franklin, Mrs. William, i., 40, 255, 264 (note) + +Franklin, William Temple, i., 44, 92, 93, 174 (note), 261, 264 (note), 372, +388, 390, 453, 482, 497, 530, 539; + ii., 24, 224, 247, 255, 295, 306 + +French, Col. ii., 40, 43 + + +G + +Galloway, Joseph, i., 5, 253, 343, 347; + ii., 100, 128, 129, 135, 136, 174, 175, 176, 201, 206, 210, 339 + +Gantt, Edward, i., 65 + +Garden, Dr. Alexander, i., 315 + +Gates, Gen. Horatio, i., 470 + +Gazetteer, Letter to, ii., 202 + +Gébelin, Antoine Court de, ii., 418 + +General Magazine and Historical Chronicle for all the British Plantations +in America, ii., 74 + +George III, i., 418, 419, 453, 455, 457; + ii., 99, 165 + +Gladstone, Wm. E., ii., 168, 204 + +Godfrey, Mrs., i., 208 + +Godfrey, Thomas, i., 118, 326, 327; + ii,. 59 + +Grace, Robert, i., 15, 118, 301, 326; + ii., 64, 64 (note), 66 + +Grafton, Duke of, ii., 169, 227 (note) + +Grand, Ferdinand, i., 513, 530, 532; + ii., 85 + +Granville, Lord, i., 448; + ii., 118 + +Greene, Gen. Nathanael, ii., 232 + +Grenville, George, ii., 140, 190, 338, 339 (note) + + +H + +Hall, David, i., 133, 244, 350; + ii., 4 (note), 77, 79, 167 + +Hamilton, Andrew, ii., 43, 45, 63, 67 + +Hamilton, Gov. James, ii., 107, 109, 110, 141, 145 + +Hancock, John, ii., 2, 312 + +Handsome and Deformed Leg, ii., 472, 484 + +Harris, Anne, i., 282, 301 + +Harris, Grace, i., 283 + +Harry, David, ii., 54, 69 + +Hartley, David, i., 57, 108, 153, 447, 456, 542 (note), 543; + ii., 301, 302, 311 + +Hawkesworth, Dr. John, i., 57, 380, 437; + ii., 394 + +Helvétius, M., i., 489 + +Helvétius, Madame, i., 487, 518, 529, 540; + ii., 481, 483 + +Hemphill, Rev. Mr., i., 69 + +Herschel, Sir William, ii., 419 + +Hewson, Elizabeth, i., 262, 387, 390 + +Hewson, Mary (Polly Stevenson), i., 19, 35, 56, 107, 133, 224 (note), 243, +261, 262, 372, 373, 374, 471; + ii., 165, 167, 399, 412, 469, 499 + +Hewson, Dr. William, i., 19, 384, 385; + ii., 469 + +Hewson, William (Franklin's godson), i., 239, 388, 390 + +Hints for Those that would be Rich, ii., 455 + +Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania from +its Origin, i., 39 (note) + +Hodgson, William, ii., 303 + +Holker, Jean, i., 542 (note) + +Holker, Mrs. Jean, i., 542 (note) + +Holmes, Abdiel, ii., 24 + +Holmes, Mary, i., 282 + +Holmes, Capt. Robert, i., 282; + ii., 39, 53 + +Hopkinson, Francis, i., 246, 338, 339, 341; + ii., 277 + +Hopkinson, Thomas, i., 339; + ii., 379 + +Howe, Lord, i., 154, 423; + ii., 184, 230, 242, 424 + +Hubbard (or Partridge), Elizabeth, i., 20, 43 (note), 53, 64, 265, 355, +477; + ii., 9 + +Huey, Joseph, i., 79, 153 + +Hughes, John, i., 217, 222, 336; + ii., 25, 155, 167 + +Hume, David, i., 466, 467; + ii., 423, 425 + +Hunter, William, i., 542 (note); + ii., 80, 81 + +Huntingdon, Samuel, i., 47; + ii., 287, 317 + +Hutchinson Letters, Tract Relative to the Affair of, ii., 183, 207, 217, +446 + +Hutchinson, Gov. Thomas, ii., 142, 195, 217, 226 + +Hutton, James, i., 447, 453 + + +I + +Idea of the English School Sketched out for the Consideration of the +Trustees of the Philadelphia Academy, i., 138 + +Increase of Mankind, Essay on, ii., 191, 193, 348, 424 + +Ingenhousz, Jan, i., 5, 45 (note), 263, 334, 345, 418, 419, 421, 472, 532, +541; + ii., 138, 374, 379, 388, 389, 406, 415 + +Ingersoll, Jared, i., 95, 356, 364 + +Interest of Great Britain Considered with Regard to her Colonies, etc., +ii., 444 + +Internal State of America, The, ii., 347, 454 + +Izard, Ralph, ii., 221, 250, 255 (note), 256, 258 (note), 268, 270, 271, +274 + + +J + +Jackson, Richard, i., 147, 361, 470; + ii., 136, 156, 158, 165, 346, 444 + +Jackson, William, ii., 288 + +James, Abel, i., 18, 253, 342, 539; + ii., 100 + +Jay, John, i., 263, 339, 341, 350, 487; + ii., 4, 84, 235, 255 (note), 256, 257, 258 (note), 284, 285, 288, 290, +291, 292, 316, 319, 320, 321, 324, 333 + +Jefferson, Thomas, i., 6, 18, 318, 485, 540; + ii., 8, 17, 96, 235, 241, 242, 249, 255 (note), 281, 330 (note), 424 + +Jenyns, Soame, ii., 338 + +Johnson, Samuel, i., 130, 311, 356, 363 + +Johnson, Gov. William, ii., 160 + +Jones, Dr. John, i., 112 + +Jones, John Paul, i., 482, 485; + ii., 263, 268, 290, 299, 301, 476 + +Jones, Sir William, i., 411, 412, 416; + ii., 313 + +Jordan, Thomas, i., 57, 438 + +Journal of the Negotiation for Peace with Great Britain, i., 9; + ii., 5 + +Journal of a Voyage from London to Philadelphia, i., 32; + ii., 16, 350 + +Journey to the Elysian Fields, i., 489 + +Junius, ii., 227 (note) + +Junto, The, i., 117; + ii., 9, 66 + + +K + +Kalm, Peter, i., 124, 146 + +Kames, Lord, i., 20, 29, 98, 196, 391, 464, 466; + ii., 166, 177, 187, 191, 400, 424 + +Keimer, Samuel, i., 85, 206; + ii., 37, 51, 53, 62, 68, 69 + +Keith, Sir William, i., 90, 282; + ii., 20, 39, 40, 41, 51 + +Kelly and Fry, Doctors, i., 134, 135 + +Kent, Benjamin, i., 64, 64 (note) + +Kinnersley, Ebenezer, i., 246, 345; + ii., 353, 379 + + +L + +Lafayette, Marquis de, i., 48, 485, 503, 530; + ii., 256, 298 + +Lafayette, Madame de, i., 531 + +LaLuzerne, Chevalier de, ii., 253, 319, 324, 327 + +LaMarck, Madame, i., 542 (note) + +Landais, Peter, i., 162; + ii., 268 + +Lathrop, Rev. John, i., 8, 115 + +Laurens, Henry, i., 315; + ii., 5, 6 (note), 25, 255 (note), 257 (note), 284, 388 + +Laurens, Col. John, i., 315, 316 (note); + ii., 256, 288 + +Lavoisier, Antoine Laurent, i., 530, 532 + +Lavoisier, Madame, i., 477, 528 + +Lawrence, Col., i., 170 + +Lee, Arthur, i., 21 (note), 284, 285 (note), 469; + ii., 7 (note), 221, 236, 237, 249, 250, 252 (note), 255, 255 (note), 256, +258 (note), 260, 263 (note), 267, 268, 271, 274 + +Lee, Gen. Charles, i., 71, 470, 471 + +Lee, John, ii., 221, 222 + +Lee, Ludlow, i., 285 (note) + +Lee, William, i., 285 (note); + ii., 250, 265, 266, 270 + +LeDespencer, Lord (Sir Francis, Dashwood), i., 74, 391, 447, 452; + ii., 216, 448 + +LeRoy, Charles, i., 528 + +LeRoy, David, i., 528 + +LeRoy, Jean Baptiste, i., 526; + ii., 170, 354, 388, 413 + +LeRoy, Madame Jean Baptiste, i., 526 + +LeRoy, Pierre, i., 528 + +Lettsom, Dr. John Coakley, i., 421, 422 + +Le Veillard, M. Louis, i., 389, 501, 521, 530, 537; + ii., 342, 344 + +Le Veillard, Madame, i., 530, 537 + +Le Veillard, Mlle., i., 541 + +Lining, John, i., 315; + ii., 373 (note), 381, 397 (note), 419 + +Lith, M., ii., 307 + +Livezey, Thomas, i., 344 + +Livingston, Robert R., i., 480; + ii., 241, 253, 292, 293, 304, 326, 327, 345 + +Lloyd, Thomas, ii., 152 + +Logan, James, i., 132, 158, 171, 350; + ii., 17, 90, 397 + +Logan, Miss, ii., 20 + +Loose Thoughts on a Universal Fluid, ii., 417 + +Lor, M. de, ii., 355 + +Loudon, Lord, ii., 112, 114, 117 (note) + +Lovell, James, ii., 13, 301, 305, 345 + + +M + +Madison, James, ii., 330, 335 + +Maize, Essay on, i., 149 + +Mansfield, Lord, ii., 121, 227 (note), 448 + +Marat, Jean Paul, ii., 277 + +Marbois, i., 263; + ii., 324, 327 + +Maritime Observations, i., 528 + +Marshall, Humphrey, i., 421; + ii., 344 (note) + +Martin, David, i., 131 + +Martin, Henri, i., 473 + +Maseres, Francis, i., 441 (note) + +Mather, Cotton, i., 83, 117, 269; + ii., 57 + +Mather, Rev. Increase, i., 83, 117 + +Mather, Samuel, i., 117; + ii., 57 + +Maurepas, M. de, ii., 317 (note) + +Meanes of Disposing the Enemie to Peace, ii., 468 + +Mecom, Benny, i., 286, 291, 297; + ii., 73 + +Mecom, Mrs. Benny, i., 294 + +Mecom, Edward, i., 291 + +Mecom, Jane, i., 20, 31 (note), 52, 68, 71, 80, 95, 107 (note), 172, 177, +240, 270, 273, 274, 278, 279, 281, 282, 284, 287, 295, 297, 354, 371, 372, +477; + ii., 10, 22, 187, 203, 399 + +Meditation on a Quart Mugg, ii., 464, 466 + +Meredith, Hugh, i., 326; + ii., 53, 55, 63 + +Mesmer, ii., 407 + +Mifflin, Thomas, i., 542 (note) + +Militia Act, i., 183; + ii., 126 + +Mitchell, Dr., ii., 354 + +Montaudouin, M., i., 56 + +Monthieu, John Joseph, i., 542 (note) + +Morellet, Abbé, i., 229, 488, 495, 496, 497, 513, 518; + ii., 7 (note), 274, 394, 472, 480 + +Morellet, Abbé, Franklin's letter to, on wine, ii., 472 + +Morris, Eleanor, i., 277 + +Morris, Robert, i., 159 (note); + ii., 19, 24, 253, 254, 257 (note), 266, 291, 292, 330 + +Morris, Gov. Robert Hunter, i., 185; + ii., 19, 104, 104 (note), 109, 111 + +Morris, Robert and Thomas Leach, ii., 203 + +Morris, Thomas, ii., 266, 269 + +Moustiers, Comte de, i., 477 (note) + + +N + +Narrative of the Late Massacres in Lancaster County, i., 194 + +Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency, ii., 66 + +Neave, Oliver, ii., 383 + +Newenham, Sir Edward, i., 5, 469 + +New York, ii., 35 (note) + +New Zealand, i., 153 + +Nogaret, Felix, ii., 18 + +Nollet, Abbé, ii., 354, 382 + +Norris, Isaac, ii., 129, 141, 155 + +North, Lord, ii., 5, 221, 223 + +Notes and Hints for a Paper on Catching Cold, ii., 412 + + +O + +Observations Relative to the Intentions of the Original Founders of the +Academy in Philadelphia, i., 136, 138 + +Onslow, Col., ii., 339 (note) + +Osborne, Charles, i., 323 + +Oswald, Richard, i., 110, 156; + ii., 7, 322 + + +P + +Paine, Thomas, i., 259, 530 + +Parable of Brotherly Love, i., 64; + ii., 425, 456 + +Parable against Persecution, i., 64; + ii., 15, 456 + +Paradise, Mr., i., 496 + +Paris, Ferdinand John, ii., 119 + +Parker, James, i., 148 (note), 291, 293; + ii., 73 + +Parsons, William, i., 326, 327 + +Parton, James, i., 73, 74, 227, 275, 303; + ii., 85, 153 + +Paschal, Mrs., i., 542 (note) + +Passy, Mlle., de, i., 483 + +Pellion, Louis Givanetti, ii., 307 + +Penn, Gov. John, i., 193, 196, 197; + ii., 126, 153 + +Penn, Thomas, i., 124, 170, 189; + ii., 102, 102 (note), 131, 141 + +Penn, Lady Thomas, ii., 21, 139 + +Penn, William, i., 158, 191; + ii., 101, 102, 125, 131, 138 + +Pennsylvania Gazette, ii., 20, 21, 27, 62, 69, 75, 78, 85 + +Percival, Thomas, ii., 12 + +Perkins, John, ii., 380 + +Peters, Rev. Mr., i., 127 + +Peters, Richard, ii., 141, 155 + +Petition of the Left Hand, ii., 490 + +Petition of the Letter Z, ii., 471 + +Philadelphia, i., 8, 151 + +Philadelphische Zeitung, ii., 74 + +Pitt, Miss, i., 380 + +Plain Truth, i., 163 + +Plan for Improving the Condition of the Free Blacks, ii., 454 + +Plan for Settling two Western Colonies in North America, i., 103, (note) + +Poetry of Franklin, i., 113, 230, 275, 380, 499; + ii., 427, 498 + +Poor, Essay on the Laboring, ii., 345 + +Poor Richard's Almanac, i., 16, 27; + ii., 503 + +Potts, Stephen, i., 326, 327; + ii., 53 + +Pownall, Thomas, i., 343, 542 (note); + ii., 159, 340 (note) + +Preface to the Speech of Joseph Galloway, ii., 104, 129 + +Price, Dr. Richard, i., 58, 93, 96, 416, 425, 531; + ii., 385, 529 + +Price of Corn, ii., 347 + +Priestley, Joseph, i., 27, 67, 92, 106, 109, 110, 224 (note), 373, 416, +426, 427, 429; + ii., 171, 221, 223, 224, 230, 375, 405 + +Prince, Rev. Thomas, ii., 358 (note) + +Pringle, Sir John, i., 93, 320, 391, 402, 415, 416, 417, 417 (note), 421, +425; + ii., 408, 421 + +Proposals Relating to Education, i., 129; + ii., 23 + +Proposition Relative to Privateering, i., 110, 156 + +Prussia, i., 156 + +Public Advertiser, Letters to, ii., 192, 220, 228, 449 + + +Q + +Queries and Remarks in Relation to the Pennsylvania Constitution, ii., 331 +(note) + +Quincy, Edmund, i., 149 + +Quincy, Josiah, i., 52, 352, 353, 476; + ii., 25, 247, 261 + +Quincy, Josiah, Jr., i., 21 (note), 352 + + +R + +Ralph, James, i., 87, 90, 202, 224 (note), 323; + ii., 21, 43, 45 + +Ray, Catherine (or Mrs. William Greene), i., 207, 231, 266, 312, 356, 364, +385, 533 + +Raynal, Abbé, i., 318, 485 + +Read, James, i., 301 + +Read, Joseph, i., 301; ii., 83 + +Read, Mrs. (Franklin's mother-in-law), i., 24, 37, 206, 241, 243, 301; + ii., 93 + +Reed, Joseph, ii., 226, 268 + +Remarks and Facts Concerning American Paper Money, ii., 336, 340 + +Remarks on the Late Protest, i., 67; + ii., 136 + +Retort Courteous, The, ii., 454 + +Rhoads, Samuel, i., 246, 330, 542 (note); + ii., 137 + +Rise and Progress of the Differences between Great Britain and her American +Colonies, ii., 175 + +Rittenhouse, David, i., 350 + +Robert, Messrs., ii., 386, 387 + +Roberts, Hugh, i., 246, 311, 327, 328, 330, 331, 359 + +Robespierre, ii., 277 + +Robinson, Crabbe, i., 39 + +Roche, Abbé de la, i., 488, 489, 496, 499, 501, 513, 518 + +Rochefoucauld, Duc de la, i., 477, 486, 530, 531; + ii., 321, 342 + +Romilly, Sir Samuel, i., 20; + ii., 7 (note), 248, 347 + +Rozier, M. Pilâtre de, ii., 385, 389 + +Rules by Which a Great Empire May be Reduced to a Small One, ii., 446 + +Rush, Dr. Benjamin, i., 321, 332, 333, 420; + ii., 410 + +Russell, Lord John, ii., 227 + +Ruston, Thomas, ii., 341 + + +S + +Sainte-Beuve, i., 11 + +Sale of the Hessians, ii., 472 + +Sargent, John, i., 42 (note), 104, 438 + +Sayre, Stephen, i., 21 (note); + ii., 340 + +Schuyler, Gen. Philip, ii., 238, 240 + +Schweighauser, M., i., 285 (note) + +Scott, Lydia, i., 282, 301 + +Sharp, Granville, i., 76, 77 + +Shavers and Trimmers, ii., 464, 467 + +Shelburne, Lord, i., 430; + ii., 161, 162, 195, 221, 223, 261, 320, 321, 394 + +Shipley, Anna Maria, i., 408, 411, 412; + ii., 313 + +Shipley, Catherine, i., 330, 407, 409, 410, 412, 416, 417, 417 (note) + +Shipley, Emily, i., 408, 414, 417 + +Shipley, Georgiana, i., 405, 407, 410, 412, 413, 417, 417 (note); + ii., 231 (note) + +Shipley, Jonathan (Bishop of St. Asaph's), i., 5, 20, 56, 405, 537; + ii., 346 + +Shipley, Mrs. Jonathan, i., 406, 407, 412, 417 (note) + +Shirley, Gen. William, ii., 112, 146 + +Silence Dogood, i., 83, 84; + ii., 31 + +Small, Alexander, i., 77, 265, 439; + ii., 383, 405 + +Smeathman, Henry, ii., 362 + +Smith, Sydney, i., 465, 466; + ii., 527 + +Smith, Dr. William, i., 128, 131, 311, 340; + ii., 129 + +Smyth, Albert Henry, i., 43, 248 (note), 484 + +Some Good Whig Principles, ii., 100, 454 + +Soulavie, Abbé, ii., 420 + +Sparks, Jared, i., 248 (note); + ii., 200 (note), 211 (note) + +Speech of Sidi Mehemet Ibrahim against the Erika, i., 7; + ii., 489 + +St. John, Hector, ii., 7 (note) + +Stanley, John, i., 57, 284, 380, 437 + +Stevenson, Mrs. Margaret, i., 44, 134, 236, 242, 247, 250, 306, 307, 372, +373, 386, 388, 391, 454, 479; + ii., 4 (note), 468, 469, 470, 470 (note) + +Stiles, Ezra, i., 91, 114, 356, 362 + +Stories, i., 27, 44, 67, 110, 289, 297, 318, 319, 320, 321 (note), 338, +341, 349, 354, 361, 377, 402, 430, 434, 437, 445, 469, 510; + ii., 9, 10, 11, 12, 241, 247 + +Stormont, Lord, ii., 13, 14 (note) + +Strachey, Henry, ii., 244 + +Strahan, William, i., 14, 39, 41, 55, 58, 131, 134, 201, 224 (note), 225, +227, 229, 230, 302, 311, 313, 385, 392, 438, 467; + ii., 21, 79, 91, 117, 164, 165, 425 + +Sumner, Charles, i., 71 + +Supplement to the Boston Independent Chronicle, ii., 472, 474 + +Syng, Philip, i., 328, 330, 331; + ii., 367, 379 + + +T + +Tasker, Col. Benjamin, i., 178, 314 + +Temple, John, ii., 220, 220 (note) + +Tennent, Rev. Gilbert, i., 142 + +Thayer, John, i., 64 + +Thomas, Sir George, i., 175; + ii., 105, 109 + +Thompson, Mrs., i., 442, 443 + +Thomson, Charles, i., 246, 350; + ii., 84, 168, 187, 201, 208, 209, 390 + +Tissington, Anthony, i., 442, 445 + +Toleration in Old England and New England, ii., 446 + +Torris, J. i., 155 + +Transatlantic Voyages of Franklin, i., 224 (note) + +Tucker, Dean, ii., 162 + +Turgot, Marquis de, i., 9, 486, 488, 542 (note); + ii., 18, 274, 404 + +Tyler, Moses Coit, ii., 6 (note) + + +V + +Vanetta, Capt., i., 188; + ii., 513 + +Vaughan, Benjamin, i., 18, 67, 109, 156, 432, 531, 537; + ii., 24, 162, 343, 347, 409, 440, 444 + +Vergennes, Comte de, i., 487; + ii., 252, 253, 255, 280, 285, 287, 293, 312, 317 (note), 318, 319, 320, +321, 324, 325, 326, 327, 328, 342 + +Vernon, Mr., i., 200 + +Vindication and Offer from Congress to Parliament, ii., 452 + +Viny, Thomas, i., 391, 442, 445; + ii., 397 (note) + +Virginia, i., 315 + +Voltaire, i., 48; + ii., 278, 358 + + +W + +Walker, Hannah, i., 277 + +Walpole, Horace, ii., 227, 476 + +Walpole, Thomas, ii., 209 + +Washington, George, i., 6, 18, 21, 182, 261, 262, 302, 316, 403, 529; + ii., 96, 111, 247, 287, 312, 329 + +Watson, Joseph, i., 323 + +Way to Wealth, i., 12; + ii., 517 + +Webb, Benjamin, i., 150 + +Webb, George, i., 326; + ii., 54, 62 + +Webster, Noah, ii., 400, 436 + +Wedderburn, Alexander, ii., 221, 227 (note) + +Weems, Mason, i., 65, 88 + +Weissenstein, Charles de, ii., 311 + +Welfare, Michael, i., 58 + +West, Benjamin, i., 470, 471 + +West Wycombe, i., 75, 452 + +Wharton, Dr. Francis, i., 542 (note); + ii., 6 (note) + +Wharton, Samuel, i., 311, 343, 344, 541; + ii., 268 + +Wharton, Thomas, i., 245, 246, 253, 311, 343, 344 + +Whatley, George, i., 6, 55, 57, 104, 447, 463; + ii., 251, 396 + +Whateley, Thomas, ii., 220 + +Whateley, William, ii., 220 + +Whistle, The, i., 501; + ii., 472, 478 + +Whitefield, George, i., 54, 59, 61, 132, 142, 338, 447. 449 + +Whitefoord, Caleb, i., 133, 442, 447, 447 (note) + +Whitehead, Paul, i., 75; + ii., 448 + +Whitehead, Wm. A., i., 39 (note) + +Whitehurst, John, i., 442, 445 + +Wickes, Capt., ii., 249, 295, 297 + +Wilkes, John, i., 75; + ii., 99, 165 + +Williams, Jonathan, i., 281, 283, 288, 295, 297 + +Williams, Jonathan, Jr., i., 283, 289, 469, 481; + ii., 4 (note), 11, 263, 269, 296 + +Williams, Josiah, i., 283 + +Williams, Mariamne (Miss Alexander), i., 211, 469, 542 (note) + +Winthrop, John, i., 352, 426, 430; + ii., 218 + +Witch Trial at Mt. Holly, ii., 464 + +Wren, Thomas, ii., 304 + +Wright, Dr., ii., 355 + +Wright, James, i., 346 + +Wright, Susannah, i., 192, 346 + +Wygate, ii., 49 + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Benjamin Franklin; Self-Revealed, +Volume II (of 2), by Wiliam Cabell Bruce + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BENJAMIN FRANKLIN; SELF-REVEALED, VOL II *** + +***** This file should be named 36897-8.txt or 36897-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/8/9/36897/ + +Produced by David Edwards, Josephine Paolucc and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. 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