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If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: Benjamin Franklin - -Author: Robin McKown - -Release Date: August 19, 2020 [EBook #62974] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BENJAMIN FRANKLIN *** - - - - -Produced by Stephen Hutcheson and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - BENJAMIN FRANKLIN - - - by - Robin McKown - - [Illustration: Publisher logo] - - G. P. Putnam’s Sons - New York - - - To Rosalie Quine - - - Third Impression - © 1963 by Robin McKown - All rights reserved - - Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 63-9688 - - Manufactured in the United States of America - - Published simultaneously in the Dominion of Canada - by Longmans Canada Limited, Toronto - - 10216 - - - - - CONTENTS - - - 1. A Boyhood in Boston 9 - 2. A Young Man on His Own 18 - 3. The Birth of Poor Richard 28 - 4. The Civic-Minded Citizen 38 - 5. The Thunder Giant 49 - 6. A Brief Military Career 61 - 7. The Battle with the Penns 73 - 8. The White Christian Savages 84 - 9. The Stamp Act 91 - 10. Friendships in England 100 - 11. The Terrible Hutchinson Letters 111 - 12. Beginning of a Long War 123 - 13. The Splendid Word Independence 132 - 14. France Falls in Love with an American 143 - 15. America’s First Ambassador 155 - 16. A Glorious Old Age 165 - 17. The Closing Years 177 - _Suggested Reading_ 188 - _Index_ 189 - - - - - BENJAMIN FRANKLIN - - - - - 1 - A BOYHOOD IN BOSTON - - -The Franklins of Boston were poor, numerous, lively and intelligent. -There were seventeen children in all, seven by their father’s first -wife, who had died after Josiah Franklin brought her from England to -America; and ten by his second wife, Abiah, Benjamin’s mother. Benjamin, -born on January 6 (January 17, new style), 1706, was the youngest son, -though he had two younger sisters, Jane, who was always his favorite, -and Lydia. - -They lived on Milk Street across from the Old South Church until he was -six, when they took a larger house on Hanover Street. A blue ball hung -over the door, serving to identify the house in lieu of street numbers. -In June 1713, a firm of slave traders advertised “three able Negro men -and three Negro women ... to be seen at the house of Mr. Josiah Franklin -at the Blue Ball.” Josiah kept no slaves himself but had a shed in which -he allowed these captives to be housed. - -Boston was then a busy seaport town, with some 12,000 population, next -largest to Philadelphia in the American colonies. Its harbor was filled -with sailing vessels; merchant ships from the Barbados or faraway -England unloaded their goods at the Long Wharf. Streets were unpaved and -unlighted, but there was plenty of activity in the coffeehouses and -taverns. The town boasted of at least six book stores. - -Benjamin could not remember when he learned to read. According to his -sister Jane, he was reading the Bible at five and composing verses at -seven. The verse writing was inspired by his father’s brother, Uncle -Benjamin, a versifier himself, who appeared at varying intervals, -usually staying as long as his welcome lasted. - -At a very young age, Benjamin devoured his father’s religious tracts and -sermons, but soon found boring their tirades against infidels and -Catholics. _Pilgrim’s Progress_, in contrast, was an absorbing adventure -story, and _Plutarch’s Lives_ opened up a new and exciting world. His -official schooling began at eight and lasted just two years. After that -he worked in his father’s soap and candle making shop, doing errands, -dipping molds, cutting wick for candles. - -With so many mouths to feed, higher education, such as that offered at -nearby Harvard University, was out of reach for any of the Franklin -children. To improve their minds, Josiah often invited men of learning -to dinner, encouraging them to discuss worthwhile matters. Though his -trade was lowly, he was one of the town’s most respected citizens. -Leading Bostonians often consulted him about public affairs, or asked -him to arbitrate disputes. He was a man of many skills, was handy with -tools, played the violin, and sang hymns in a pleasing voice. Benjamin’s -love of music began in his childhood. - -The values of obedience and industry were implanted in all of them. -“Seest thou a man diligent in his calling,” Josiah would quote from -Solomon, “he shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean -men.” Nothing then seemed more unlikely than that he, Benjamin Franklin, -would ever stand before a king. - -He was a sturdy, squarely built youngster, with a broad friendly face, -light brown hair, and bright mischievous eyes. Among boys of his own age -he was the leader—and sometimes led them into scrapes. - -Once they were fishing for minnows in the salt marsh. Benjamin suggested -they build a wharf so as not to get their feet wet. For the purpose, -they appropriated a pile of stones belonging to some workmen who were -using them to build a house. The wharf was a success but there were -repercussions when the men found their stones missing. - -“Nothing is useful which is not honest,” Josiah told his erring son. - -As a youth, he learned to handle boats, to swim, to dive, and to perform -all manner of water stunts. One day he resolved to try swimming and -flying his kite simultaneously. To his delight, he found that if he -floated on his back while holding the kite’s string, he was effortlessly -drawn across the pond. Another time he carved himself two oval slabs of -wood, shaped like a painter’s palette, bored a hole for his thumb, and -used them like oars to propel himself along. In this way he could easily -outswim his comrades, though his wrists soon tired. He tried similar -devices for his feet with less success. For this invention he might be -called the first frog man. - -He had no enthusiasm for cutting candle wicks and often dreamed of going -to sea as an older brother had done. Josiah Franklin, sensing his -discontent, told him he could take his pick of other trades. In turn, he -took his son to watch the work of joiners, bricklayers, turners, and -braziers. Young Benjamin admired the way they handled their tools but -did not find these trades to his taste either. - -Wisely, his father did not press him. His brother James had returned -from England in 1717 with equipment to set up a printing shop at the -corner of Queen Street and Dasset Alley. Since Benjamin liked to read, -what would he think of being a printer—a trade that deals with -pamphlets, books, everything made with words? The idea appealed to -Benjamin, though he balked when he learned he would be apprenticed to -his brother until he was twenty. His father insisted; the -apprenticeship, legal as a slave contract, would assure him against -losing a second son to the dangerous sea. When Benjamin finally signed -the papers which bound him to his brother’s service, he was twelve years -old. Everyone agreed he was exceptionally bright for his age. - -James Franklin was one of Boston’s young intellectuals, belonging to -what the pious Cotton Mather called the “Hell Fire Club,” made up of -clever young men like himself. He had reason to be pleased with how -quickly his little brother mastered the techniques of a printer’s trade. -As Benjamin’s skill began to surpass his own, his attitude changed to -resentment and jealousy. He found excuses to scold Benjamin, and -sometimes gave him blows. - -The shop handled pamphlets and advertisements and such odd jobs. As a -sideline they printed patterns on linen, calico, and silk “in good -figures, very lively and durable colours.” In the second year of -Benjamin’s apprenticeship, their fortunes improved with a substantial -contract to print the Boston _Gazette_ for 40 weeks. The _Gazette_ was -one of Boston’s two newspapers, both insufferably dull. When his -contract came to an end, James decided to publish his own newspaper. His -friends scoffed, saying that America had no need of still another -newspaper! - -The first issue of James Franklin’s _New England Courant_ appeared -August 7, 1721, during a smallpox epidemic—and was devoted to opposing -the new “doubtful and dangerous practice” of smallpox inoculation. There -is no evidence that young Benjamin took any stand—either for or -against—in the controversy. - -The great advantage of working for his brother was that he had access to -books. Several apprentices to booksellers with whom he made friends -obligingly “loaned” him volumes from their masters’ shelves. So they -could be returned early in the morning before they were missed, he often -sat up all night reading. There was also a tradesman named Matthew Adams -with his own library, who took a fancy to Benjamin and let him borrow -what he chose. From reading he turned his hand to writing, composing a -ballad called _The Lighthouse Tragedy_, the account of the drowning of a -ship’s captain and his two daughters. - -James saw possibilities in this effort, printed it for Benjamin, then -sent him out on the streets to sell it. (The story of young Benjamin -Franklin hawking his ballads on the streets of Boston would much later -bring tears to the eyes of his aristocratic French friends.) _The -Lighthouse Tragedy_ was wonderfully popular, but his second ballad, a -sailor’s song about a pirate, was such a dismal failure that he allowed -his father to discourage him from trying others. - -“Verse-makers are usually beggars,” Josiah Franklin had commented. - -Prose was Benjamin’s next effort. His inspiration was a volume of the -London _Spectator_, with essays by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, -leading prose stylists of the eighteenth century. He made notes on their -subject matter, laid the notes aside a few days, tried to reconstruct -the original. He changed the essays into verse, endeavored to put them -back to prose. Thus he strove to correct his own writing faults, on -occasion having the thrill of finding he had in a phrase or expression -improved the original. - -Both reading and writing were done on his own time, before the shop -opened in the morning, at night, and on Sundays when his conscience let -him miss church. And still there were never enough hours in the day for -all the learning he sought. - -When he was sixteen he came under the influence of a book by a man named -Tryon, who preached on the evils of eating “fish or flesh.” He had been -taking his dinners with James and the workmen at a boardinghouse run by -a Mrs. Peabody. Would his brother agree to giving him half what he paid -Mrs. Peabody and let him buy his own dinner? Benjamin proposed. James -jumped at such a bargain. Henceforth the young apprentice dined on dried -raisins and bread instead of roasts and legs of mutton. He even had -money left over for books, and two extra hours in the empty shop to -peruse them as he ate. One of the volumes he purchased at this time -influenced him even more than Tryon and his vegetarianism. - -This was Xenophon’s _Memorabilia_, which told of Socrates and his -philosophy. - -Hitherto when Benjamin had an opinion, he stated it, as so many do, -unequivocally as a fact. It had been a mystery to him why people so -often took offense and set to arguing the opposite side of the question. -Instead of saying outright what he had in mind, Socrates asked -questions—and indirectly led people to his own opinion. From that time -on, Benjamin used rarely such words as “certainly” or “undoubtedly,” but -expressed his own ideas with seeming diffidence and modesty. Rather than -saying, “This is so,” he substituted, “In my opinion, this might be so.” -He retained this habit of speech the rest of his life. - -Outwardly more humble, he was inwardly gaining self-confidence. It -seemed to him that the things which James and his literary friends wrote -for the _Courant_ were no better than he could do himself, but he was -too smart to risk asking his brother to let him have an opportunity to -try. One morning a letter was slipped under the door of the shop before -any of the staff arrived. It was signed by a “Mrs. Silence Dogood.” - -Mrs. Dogood claimed to have been born on a ship bringing her parents -from London to New England. Her father, so she said, was standing on the -deck rejoicing at her birth when “a merciless wave” carried him to his -death. In America, as soon as she was old enough, her hard-pressed -mother had apprenticed her to a young country parson, whom the young -girl later married. Now she was a widow with three children. - -James printed Mrs. Dogood’s first letter, as well as subsequent ones in -which she expressed herself, wittily and clearly, on such varied -subjects as the folly of fashionable dress, the character of the -so-called weaker sex, the ill effects of liquor, the inferior quality of -New England poetry, the need of insurance for widows and old maids, the -hypocrisy of certain “pretenders to religion,” and the uselessness of -sending dullards to Harvard simply because their fathers could afford to -pay their way. - -Not until her column had become the most controversial and the most -popular in the paper, did James Franklin learn that his -apprentice-brother was Mrs. Dogood’s creator. - -In the meantime James was having his own troubles. Because of an -editorial attack by one of his contributors on the Massachusetts -governor, James was summoned before the City Council, sent to jail for a -month, and released only when he agreed to make an abject apology. The -City Council then forbade him to print or publish the _Courant_. In -desperation, James and his friends hit on the scheme of making Benjamin, -in name only, the _Courant_ publisher. So it would be legal, James -burned his brother’s apprenticeship papers, although privately a new set -was drawn up. - -“Mrs. Dogood” added her voice to the indignation aroused at James -Franklin’s persecution. From the London _Journal_, she quoted an -article: “Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as -Wisdom; and no such Thing as public liberty without Freedom of Speech.” -(Capitalization of nouns was then held part of elegant writing, a -practice which Benjamin Franklin always followed carefully.) - -He had a freer hand now and composed many articles for the _Courant_. At -seventeen, he was without doubt the best writer in Boston, with a mind -inferior to none. It is small wonder that his brother felt it his moral -duty to exert his authority over him. There were arguments. There were -more blows on the part of James. Benjamin, by his own admission, was -“perhaps ... too saucy and provoking.” - -One day he told his brother he was quitting. A runaway apprentice was -subject to the same penalties as a runaway slave, but Benjamin’s case -was slightly different. James could not make public the secret -apprenticeship papers without getting himself in trouble. He took out -his fury by visiting other Boston printing shops to warn them not to -employ his arrogant younger brother. - -Benjamin resolved to go to New York. His only confidant was a young -friend named Collins. Collins persuaded the captain of a New York sloop -to give him passage, telling a fantastic yarn about Benjamin being -pursued by a young woman who wanted to marry him. The captain would not -have carried a runaway apprentice but goodnaturedly agreed to help the -young “ne’er-do-well” elude the female sex. - -New York, where Benjamin arrived after a three-day journey, had only -7,000 inhabitants but was suffused with an atmosphere of luxury unknown -in Boston. Streets, paved with cobblestones, were filled with elegantly -attired English officials and wealthy businessmen. Houses were mostly of -brick with stairstep roofs in the Dutch style. Though the English had -captured it from the Netherlands in 1674, Dutch customs still prevailed. - -Benjamin called at once on William Bradford, New York’s only printer. -Bradford told him he needed no help—privately he thought the Boston -youth unstable—but advised him to go to Philadelphia and see his son, -Andrew Bradford, also a printer. He could guarantee nothing but at least -there was no harm trying. - -In history, William Bradford, a worthy man in his own way, has two -indirect claims to fame. One was that a former apprentice of his named -Peter Zenger braved official censure and served a prison sentence for -the principle of freedom of the press. The other—that he refused a job -to Benjamin Franklin. - - - - - 2 - A YOUNG MAN ON HIS OWN - - -No one could have looked sadder or funnier than Benjamin Franklin when -he walked down Philadelphia’s Market Street for the first time. At the -Fourth Street intersection, a rosy-cheeked buxom young girl, standing in -a doorway, burst out laughing at the sight of him. It was -understandable. His traveling suit was wet, shrunken and shapeless. His -pockets were bulging with spare socks and shirts. He was hugging a large -puffy white roll tightly under each arm and simultaneously eating a -third. - -The journey from New York had been a series of mishaps. His ship nearly -foundered in a squall off the Long Island coast and was becalmed near -Block Island. Fresh water ran low. They would have gone hungry had not -some of the passengers hauled in a batch of codfish. Benjamin found the -aroma of frying fish so tempting that he there and then renounced Mr. -Tryon’s vegetarian regime, never returning to it except for lack of -funds. - -Thirty hours later they landed at Amboy, where a leaky ferry took him -across to Perth Amboy. From there he walked some fifty miles to -Burlington, a two-day hike in pouring rain, then caught a boat going -down the Delaware. The captain was short a hand and Benjamin helped with -the rowing. - -By the time they reached Philadelphia, his entire fortune was a Dutch -dollar and a shilling in copper. The captain told him he had earned his -passage, but he insisted on paying the shilling. It was a matter of -pride: “A man being sometimes more generous when he has but a little -money than when he has plenty, perhaps thro’ fear of being thought to -have but little.” - -A three-penny piece had procured him the three enormous rolls. One of -them satisfied his hunger. He gave the other two to a woman and child -who had been on the boat with him. That night he slept at the Crooked -Billet Tavern, to which a friendly Quaker directed him. - -The next morning he made himself as presentable as he could and went to -see Andrew Bradford, the printer. Young Bradford had no work but -hospitably invited him to lodge with his family. The same day Benjamin -called on another printer, Samuel Keimer, who promptly hired him. Thus -within twenty-four hours of his inopportune arrival, he had a place to -stay and a job. - -Keimer was an eccentric little man with a long black beard who had but -recently come from France. He was somewhat of a knave as Benjamin would -learn later, and he knew little about his trade. His press was old and -in disrepair with only one small and worn-out font (set of type). But -the pay was good, or so it seemed to a youth who had never had a salary -before. He soon had Keimer befuddled with admiration by quoting Socrates -to him. - -His employer was nervous about Benjamin living with a rival printer and -in a few weeks arranged for him to lodge with a family named Read. His -chest of clothes which he had shipped from New York had now arrived. -When Keimer took him to his new landlady, Ben was dressed in his best, a -handsome, husky well-mannered young man, about five feet ten inches, -with a wide mouth and a humorous light in his brown eyes. He was -introduced to the daughter of the house, Deborah Read. Both young people -started in surprise. She was the same lass who had laughed at him as he -walked down Market Street eating his roll. - -Debby was a warmhearted outspoken young lady, cheerful and quite pretty. -Although, unlike himself, she had little interest in improving her mind, -he enjoyed her company. There was shortly some talk of marriage between -them. Her parents discouraged the idea, saying they were both too young. -Nor was Benjamin overly ardent in his courtship. He was not yet -eighteen, and far too pleased to be free of family discipline to think -of settling down as a married man. - -Philadelphia was largely a Quaker town, with a sprinkling of Swedes and -Finns and a large contingent of German immigrants. The rich farms -surrounding it were cut into deep forests where Indians lingered. Bears -and wolves were still shot at the city’s gates. This “City of Brotherly -Love” had been planned by William Penn, the noble Quaker to whom King -Charles II had made a grant of the some forty thousand square miles of -land that made up the province of Pennsylvania. In contrast to the royal -colonies, like New York and Massachusetts, Pennsylvania was known as a -“proprietary” colony. - -At William Penn’s death, his sons inherited the proprietorship. There -was already some resentment because of the vast tracts which the Penns -held tax-free. - -In Philadelphia, Benjamin soon found friends of his own age and of -kindred interests. There were three with whom he spent many social -evenings: a pious young man named Watson, an argumentative one named -Osborne, and James Ralph, who fancied himself a poet. They exchanged -ideas on a multitude of subjects and read each other things they had -written. Franklin was not overworked on his job and had leisure for -reading. His needs were few and he saved some money. - -Certainly he missed his family but he dared not let them know where he -was for fear of being dragged back to Boston. He did not realize that in -the small and intimate world of the colonies news of a stranger was -likely to get around. He had a brother-in-law, Robert Holmes, who was a -sloop owner living in New Castle, forty miles from Philadelphia. Somehow -Holmes learned of his whereabouts and wrote to tell him the worry he had -caused his parents. Benjamin answered in considerable detail, explaining -the reasons for his departure. - -Soon afterwards two distinguished gentlemen knocked at Keimer’s shop. -Keimer spied them from an upstairs window. “Sir William Keith!” he -gasped in awe, and rushed down the steps to open the door, bowing and -scraping. Keith was governor of the province of Pennsylvania! With him -was another important citizen, one Colonel French. No doubt Keimer -expected some important commission. The governor, however, brushed him -aside and demanded to see Mr. Benjamin Franklin. - -“How do you do, sir,” he said when Benjamin appeared. “I must reproach -you for not making yourself known to me when you first arrived. I have -heard fine things about you, very fine things indeed. The colonel and I -are headed to the tavern across the way which serves an excellent -Madeira. Would you care to join us?” - -“I would be delighted, your honor,” Benjamin told him, removing the -leather apron which was a symbol of his trade. His face was as impassive -as if it were an everyday occurrence to have a governor invite him for a -glass of wine. - -Keimer, mouth open, stared at them with the look of a “poisoned pig.” - -Over the Madeira, Benjamin learned that Keith knew Robert Holmes, his -brother-in-law, and had seen his letter. Keith, a man of some literary -pretensions himself, had been deeply impressed with his skill at -expressing himself. - -“The printers of Philadelphia are a wretched lot,” Keith asserted. “From -what your brother-in-law says, Mr. Franklin, I am convinced that you -would succeed in your own shop. I will do all in my power to aid you.” - -As Benjamin basked in this heady tribute, the governor and Colonel -French launched into ways and means of setting him up in the printing -business. All that was needed was capital. Would not Benjamin’s father -provide the necessary backing? It was very unlikely, Benjamin commented. - -“I will tell you what I will do,” said the governor. “I will write to -your father myself to tell him how much faith I have in your ability.” - -Dazzled, Benjamin agreed to make a trip home to deliver the governor’s -letter personally. - -He took a leave of absence a few weeks later, telling Keimer only that -he was visiting his family. A year before he had quit Boston, a near -penniless runaway. He returned in triumph, wearing a new suit, carrying -a watch, and jingling some five pounds of sterling in his pocket. His -mother and father were overjoyed to see him, and his sisters crowded -around him delightedly. - -He could not resist going to the printing shop of his brother James. No -doubt he strutted somewhat and bragged about his success. He showed the -admiring workmen his silver money, a novelty in Boston where paper money -was used, and handed each a piece of eight to buy a drink. Only James -refused to be impressed. He grew increasingly glum during Benjamin’s -visit. Later he said Benjamin had gone out of his way to insult him and -he would never forgive him. - -That night Benjamin showed his father the letter from Sir William Keith. -Josiah Franklin was pleased as any parent that such an important -personage had taken an interest in his son but did not approve of -Keith’s proposal. In his opinion Benjamin was too young to have the -responsibility of his own shop, he wrote in his politely worded reply. - -“I see your father is a prudent man,” Keith said later in Philadelphia -when Benjamin came to make his report. He added that he had found there -was a great difference in persons and that discretion did not always -accompany years. Since Josiah Franklin did not recognize his son’s -unusual abilities, he, the governor, would sponsor him. - -He had Benjamin regularly to his fine house for dinner the next weeks. -Gradually he unfolded his plan. Benjamin must take his savings and go to -England. There he could pick out for himself his own press, type fonts, -paper, and whatever else he needed for a printing shop. The governor -would provide him with letters of introduction and letters of credit to -cover everything. - -Who could have refused such a splendid opportunity? Toward the end of -1724, after quitting his employment with Keimer, Benjamin set sail for -his first visit to the Old World. There had been a touching farewell to -Deborah Read, to whom he promised to write often. James Ralph, his poet -friend, went with him, having decided to try his fortune in England. -Since the governor was busy with pressing affairs, Colonel French saw -him off. He did not have the letters Keith had promised, but assured -Benjamin they were safe in the captain’s mailbag. - -He had a pleasant trip and made one good friend—an elderly Quaker -merchant named Thomas Denham. Not until they reached the English Channel -did the ship captain sort out his mail. That was when Benjamin learned -that there were no letters of credit, no letters of introduction, -nothing at all from Governor Keith. He was stranded in London, with only -twelve pounds to his name. - -In his bewilderment, he confided his plight to Denham. - -“There is not the least probability that he wrote any letters for you,” -the Quaker told him. “No one who knows the governor would depend on him. -As for his giving you any letters of credit—that is a sad joke. He has -no credit to give.” - -“But why?” Benjamin asked. “Why would he play such a trick on me?” - -“Do not think too harshly of him,” Denham said charitably. “Keith wants -to please everyone. Having little to give, he gives expectations.” - -It was a bitter lesson. - -He stayed in London nearly eighteen months. It turned out to be as easy -for him to find a job here as in Philadelphia. Part of the time he -worked for a printer named Palmer and after that for a Mr. Watt. Under -the tutelage of experienced workmen, he perfected his printing skills. -He also attempted to improve his colleagues by urging them to drink -water instead of beer for breakfast. The “Water American,” they dubbed -him, but a few of them followed his advice. - -Not that he was a prude. London had much to offer a young man who was -curious and alert and full of fun. There were operas in French or -Italian, plays by William Shakespeare at the Drury Lane Theatre, -scientific lectures, and the lure of dance halls. He wrote a pamphlet -called “A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain,” -which brought him some acclaim among London’s young intellectuals. He -presented an American curiosity, a purse of stone asbestos, to Sir Hans -Sloane, secretary of the Royal Society, and almost met Sir Isaac Newton. -James Ralph borrowed money from him and then split up with him without -paying him back, in a quarrel over a pretty milliner. He sent off one -letter to Deborah Read, but never got around to writing another. - -He could not have missed observing the squalor of the slums and the -contrasting elegance of the great lords with their postilions and -liveried coachmen. That no such vast difference existed between rich and -poor in America may have struck him, but he drew no moral lesson. He was -not yet a crusader and his heart was set on having as good a time as his -means allowed. - -On occasion he went swimming in the Thames with a co-worker named -Wygate, and once on an excursion to Chelsea he dazzled Wygate and his -other companions with a display of the water exercises which he had -invented in his childhood. A certain Sir William Wyndham, a friend of -the great Jonathan Swift, heard of his prowess and invited him to teach -swimming to his sons. About the same time, Wygate proposed that the two -of them travel through Europe, earning their way as journeymen printers. - -Both suggestions tempted Benjamin but he rejected them. His Quaker -friend Thomas Denham had offered him a position in his Philadelphia -importing company. Denham had made one fortune as a merchant and was set -on making another. With the crying need of America’s growing population -for goods from abroad, there was no reason why he should not succeed. -The salary was less than Franklin earned as a printer, but there would -be handsome commissions, travel to foreign lands, and, so he believed, -an assured future. - -He set sail on July 23, 1726, on the _Berkshire_. It was October 11 -before they reached Philadelphia. Franklin, now twenty, kept a journal -on this long voyage. He had time to think, to observe nature, to -philosophize. - -An eclipse of the sun and one of the moon were notable events of the -trip, duly recorded in his journal. The passengers fished for dolphins. -He noted their glorious appearance in the water, their bodies “of a -bright green, mixed with a silver colour, and their tails of a shining -golden yellow,” and wondered at the “vulgar error of the painters, who -always represent this fish monstrously crooked and deformed.” - -From the Gulf Stream he fished out several branches of gulfweed and -spent long hours studying a growth which he called “vegetable animals,” -resembling shellfish and yet seeming part of the weed. Noting a small -crab of the same yellowish color as the weed, he deduced—erroneously but -with logic—that the crab came from the “vegetable animals” as a -butterfly comes from a cocoon. - -The idiosyncrasies of his fellow passengers also came under his -scrutiny. From watching the men play drafts he concluded that “if two -persons equal in judgment play for a considerable sum, he that loves -money will lose; his anxiety for the success of the game confounds him.” - -One of the passengers was caught cheating and would not pay a fine. The -others refused to eat, drink or talk with him. The cheat soon paid up. -“Man is a sociable being,” young Franklin wrote in his journal, “and it -is, for aught I know, one of the worst of punishments to be excluded -from society.” - -He discovered that there was nothing like a contrary wind to bring out -the worst in mankind: “... we grow sullen, silent, and reserved, and -fret at each other upon every little occasion.” At the sight of a ship -from Dublin bound from New York, on the contrary, he commented: “There -is something strangely cheering to the spirits in the meeting of a ship -at sea ... after we had been long separated and excommunicated as it -were from the rest of mankind.” - -Interesting as the trip was, there was no moment equal to that when one -of the mess cried “Land! Land!” In less than an hour they perceived the -tufts of trees. “I could not discern it so soon as the rest; my eyes -were dimmed with the suffusion of two small drops of joy.” - -He had set out to conquer Philadelphia three years before and had not -succeeded. Now he was to have another try. - - - - - 3 - THE BIRTH OF POOR RICHARD - - -Deborah Read was married. This bit of news which greeted his return came -as a shock, though he had only himself to blame. A luscious young woman -like Debby could hardly be expected to nourish her affection on one -letter in a year and a half. - -He had, it seemed to him, three major causes for self-reproach in his -past: the grief he had caused his parents by running away from Boston; -the wrong he had done his brother James; and his long neglect of Debby. -He resolved that henceforth his life would be conducted differently. - -Printing was behind him now, or so he thought. Under Thomas Denham he -set himself to learning the intricacies of merchandising. He lived with -Denham; their relationship was that of father and son. It lasted only a -few months. In February 1727, the good Quaker fell ill and did not -recover. His executors took over his store, and Franklin was out of a -job. - -Swallowing his pride, he went back to Samuel Keimer. To his surprise his -former employer welcomed him with open arms and even gave him a raise. -He soon found out why. Keimer had hired half a dozen men at very low -pay. The trouble was they knew nothing about printing. He needed -Franklin to teach them their trade. - -Obligingly, Franklin went to great pains to show the men everything he -knew himself. He did considerably more than he was paid to do. When -types wore out, instead of sending an order to England for more, he -devised a copper mold to cast new type, the first time this had been -done in America. He made their ink, and he started a sideline of -engraving. All the techniques he had learned from the London experts, he -now put to use. - -Knowing Keimer, he did not expect gratitude nor did he get it. As -business improved and as the workmen mastered their trade, the employer -grew increasingly uncivil and quarrelsome. He complained that he was -paying Franklin too much and nagged him incessantly. Matters soon came -to a climax. One day Franklin heard a loud noise outside the shop and -dashed to the window to see what was happening. He never did find out. - -Keimer was standing in the street below and, on seeing Franklin’s face -at the window, he bawled him out in such violent and insulting terms -that everyone in the neighborhood could hear. No job was worth that -much. Franklin took his hat and walked out, never to come back. - -That night a fellow journeyman named Hugh Meredith came to see him. -Meredith, who had been a farmer and taken up printing only recently, was -fed up with Keimer. He proposed that the two of them should go into -partnership as soon as his period of service was up a few months hence. -His father admired Franklin and was willing to finance them. Mr. -Meredith senior soon confirmed the offer, privately telling Franklin he -felt he would be a good influence on his son, who drank too much. - -During the next months Franklin did odd jobs and, in his spare time, -organized a club called the Junto. There were twelve members in all, -including Hugh and two other printers, a shoemaker, a joiner, a -scrivener, and others in modest trades. “The Leather Apron Club,” the -town’s wealthier citizens nicknamed the Junto, because of the humble -working class background of its membership. - -The Junto met each Friday. Franklin provided them with a list of -“queries” to be discussed. “Have you lately observed any encroachment on -the just liberties of the people?” Already he was beginning to think in -terms of civil rights. “Do you know of any deserving young beginner -lately set up whom it lies in the power of the Junto any way to -encourage?” He knew from personal experience how much it meant to a -young man to have friends to give him support and advice. “Which is -best: to make a friend of a wise and good man that is poor or of a rich -man that is neither wise nor good?” His brief tussle with earning a -living had convinced him that wisdom was preferable to riches. - -“Whence comes the dew that stands on the outside of a tankard that has -cold water in it in the summertime?” The latter was one of many -scientific “queries” he suggested to the Junto, in line with his own -curiosity about the mysteries of life. - -To improve themselves, to cultivate ethical virtues, to lend a hand to -their neighbors—all were included in the Junto’s lofty aims. They -composed essays on various subjects. If a member read something of -interest in “history, morality, Poetry, physic, travels, mechanic arts,” -he shared his new knowledge with his fellow members. - -They were not always serious. Sometimes they met for outdoor sports. -They held banquets, composed and sang songs, made jokes, told stories, -often had riotous times together. The friendships they formed were firm, -lasting as long as they lived. - -Occasionally Franklin caught sight of Sir William Keith on the street, -The former governor would look uncomfortable and slink away. His fortune -had deteriorated. Before very long, he fled to England, leaving his wife -and daughter penniless; he died in a London debtors’ prison. - -In the spring of 1728, when Franklin was twenty-two, he and Hugh -Meredith were ready to open their own printing shop in a house on High -Street. Their first customer was a farmer who gave them five shillings -to print an advertisement. No sum ever loomed so large. - -Customers were few and far between those first months. It was not due to -Franklin’s partner that they survived at all. He was rarely sober enough -to do a day’s labor. His father had been optimistic in hoping that -Franklin could change him. Eventually Hugh admitted that he would never -make a printer. - -“I was bred a farmer, Benjamin. ’Twas folly for me to come to town and -apprentice myself to learn a new trade.” - -They talked the matter over and came to an agreement. Franklin would pay -back Hugh’s father the hundred pounds he had advanced for their printing -equipment, pay Hugh’s personal debts and give him thirty pounds and a -new saddle. Two of his Junto friends loaned him the money he needed. -Hugh took off for his farm, leaving Franklin, at twenty-three, the sole -owner of the printing shop. - -The common people of Pennsylvania at this time were pleading for paper -money, such as was used in Massachusetts and other colonies, but the -wealthier citizens opposed it. Franklin, siding with the people, wrote a -pamphlet on “The Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency,” which he -printed himself, and which swayed the Pennsylvania Assembly to pass a -bill to issue such paper currency. For his contribution, Franklin was -awarded the contract to print the money. - -Soon afterward, Philadelphia’s most esteemed lawyer, Andrew Hamilton, -arranged for him to print the laws and votes of the government. Business -was beginning to prosper. - -With all orders he took infinite pains. He kept his equipment in -excellent shape, cleaning the type himself. He used very white paper and -very black inks and sometimes made decorative woodcuts to illustrate -advertisements. He hired a workman and took an apprentice, but outworked -them both, staying in the shop from dawn to near midnight. - -His rival, Andrew Bradford, printed an address from the Pennsylvania -Assembly to the governor in a slipshod manner. Franklin reprinted the -same address elegantly, sending a copy to every Assembly member. The -next year he was voted official printer for the Assembly. He started a -stationer’s shop to sell paper, booklets, and miscellaneous items. -Perhaps to impress the citizens of Philadelphia with his industry, he -carted his supplies from the wharf in a wheelbarrow, wearing his leather -apron. - -Philadelphia boasted only one newspaper, a dreary and conservative sheet -which Bradford published. Franklin talked over with his friends his own -desire to start a livelier paper. One of them betrayed him to Keimer, -his other rival, who promptly put out a newspaper with the ambitious -title, _The Universal Instructor in All Arts and Science, and -Pennsylvania Gazette_. - -That poor illiterate Keimer running a paper? It lasted only until -September 1729 when Keimer, head over heels in debt, sold it to Franklin -for a pittance and departed to the Barbados, never to return. The -_Pennsylvania Gazette_, as he called it, became Franklin’s newspaper to -run as he wished. - -That winter he performed his first scientific experiment, designed to -find out if the heat of the sun was absorbed more readily by colored -objects than by white ones. The experiment was so simple any child could -do it; the wonder was no one had thought of it before. He took some -tailor’s samples—small squares of cloth in black, blue, green, purple, -red, yellow, and white—and laid them out on the snow a bright sunny -morning. In a few hours, the black square, which the sun had warmed -most, had sunk low into the snow; the dark blue was almost as low; the -other colors had sunk less deeply; while the white sample remained on -the surface of the snow. - -Franklin thought in terms of the practical value of this discovery: -white clothes would be more suitable than black ones in a hot climate; -summer hats should be white to repel the heat and prevent sunstroke; -fruit walls, if painted black, could absorb enough of the sun’s heat to -stay warm at night, thereby helping to preserve the fruit from frost. - -A glazier’s family named Godfrey had been sharing his High Street house. -He was lonely when they moved. Even his close friends of the Junto could -not ease his longing to have a family of his own. - -On occasion he visited the Read family. Deborah’s marriage had turned -out tragically. Her husband, a good workman but irresponsible, had, like -Keimer, taken off to the West Indies to escape debts. Even worse, it -turned out that he had a wife still living in England. Debby, who had -come home to live with her mother, was so pale and sad Franklin was -filled with pity for her. Perhaps first out of a desire to do good, -Franklin did his best to cheer her up, and it pleased him no end to see -the color gradually come back to her cheeks as her normally high spirits -returned. No woman had ever appealed to him more than she. In time she -responded to his affection. They were married on September 1, 1730. - -Theirs was not the most romantic attachment in the world, but it -endured. “She proved a good and faithful helpmate,” he wrote some years -later in his _Autobiography_, “... we throve together, and have ever -mutually endeavor’d to make each other happy.” Indeed Debby proved the -ideal wife for an ambitious young man. She helped him in his printing -orders, by folding and stitching pamphlets or purchasing old linen rags -for the paper makers, and she ran their stationer’s shop. Since he -preached the need of economy, she obligingly served him plain and simple -fare and contented herself with the cheapest furniture. Nor did she -complain when he went every Friday night to the meetings of the Junto. - -The little club had now hired a hall for its weekly gatherings. As there -was no good bookshop in Philadelphia, the members pooled their own books -and loaned them to each other. This practice of communal sharing gave -them so much pleasure that, at Franklin’s suggestion, they commenced a -public library. Every subscriber, Junto member or not, paid a sum down -to buy books from England, and there was an annual contribution for -additional purchases. America’s earliest lending library had come into -being, the first of many civic benefits which Franklin initiated over -the years. - -A rival organization to the Junto was the newly established Philadelphia -branch of the Masons, mostly well-to-do citizens. The aim of Freemasonry -was “to promote Friendship, mutual Assistance, and Good Fellowship.” -Franklin succeeded in becoming a member by a rather sly trick, a note in -the _Gazette_ claiming knowledge of the “Masonic mysteries.” Since these -“mysteries” were supposed to be highly secret, the members were so -alarmed they invited the _Gazette’s_ editor and publisher to join their -ranks. For many years he was a leader in Masonic affairs. - -He had wanted to be a Mason, but no one could persuade him to join any -church or denomination. That there was one God who made all things and -that the soul was immortal, he believed firmly. He held that “the most -acceptable service to God is doing good to man.” Since all religious -sects, in theory, preached the same, he never did see a reason to favor -one of them above others. - -Within a year or so of its inception, the _Pennsylvania Gazette_ had the -largest circulation of any paper in America. Profiting from the lessons -he had learned while working for his brother James, he stressed human -interest stories and local news. He ran an article on the harsh -treatment of a ship captain to the Palatine immigrants. He published -stories on robberies and murders, was not above poking fun at the stodgy -official reports which filled the pages of Andrew Bradford’s paper, and -he took up the cudgel for the freedom of the press. - -Most popular of all were his “Letters from the Readers,” many of which -he undoubtedly wrote himself. Thus “Anthony Afterwit” complained that -his wife, who wished to play the grand lady, was ruining him. “Celia -Single” scolded the _Gazette_ editor for being partial to men. “Alice -Addertongue,” another contributor, announced the opening of her shop to -sell “calumnies, slanders and other feminine wares.” He ran -advertisements, sometimes for runaway slaves (it would be some years -before he crystallized his thinking on the evil of slavery), sometimes -for a wife pleading to her husband to come home. He slipped in jokes as -a good cook adds seasoning, and he refused to let the paper be used for -personal quarrels. - -In 1732, three years after launching the _Gazette_, he was ready for a -new publishing venture, his celebrated _Poor Richard’s Almanack_. There -were other almanacs published in the colonies; almanacs in fact sold -almost as well as Bibles. Soon _Poor Richard_ eclipsed them all. - -Like the others, it noted holidays, changes of season, dates of fairs, -gave weather information, advised the best day to gather grapes or to -sow seeds. Interspersed with such data were proverbs, verses, witticisms -and epigrams, some original but a great many adapted from sayings of -great writers of the past, trimmed to suit an American audience: - -Light purse, heavy heart. A rich rogue is like a fat hog, who never does -good till dead as a log. Eat to live, and not live to eat. Nothing more -like a fool, than a drunken man. To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals. -None preaches better than the ant, and she says nothing. Observe all -men; thyself most. Half the truth is often a great lie. Lost time is -never found again. Little strokes, fell great oaks. Nothing but money is -sweeter than honey. Love your enemies, for they tell you your faults. -Love your neighbor; yet don’t pull down your hedge. Don’t throw stones -at your neighbors’, if your own windows are glass. The cat in gloves -catches no mice. To err is human, to repent divine; to persist devilish. -A brother may not be a friend, but a friend will always be a brother. - -And, a tribute to Debby: “He that has not got a wife, is not yet a -complete man.” - -Poor Richard had something to say on practically every subject under the -sun. He was in turn witty, wise, and, in keeping with the time he lived -in, somewhat bawdy. No matter that he was sometimes inconsistent and -contradictory, that he might praise saving money at one moment and make -fun of the miser the next. Americans—farmers, businessmen, wives and -workmen—chuckled at him, laughed with him, and perhaps at times took his -moral lessons to heart. Many of his maxims became embedded in the -American language. - -Because of _Poor Richard_, prosperity touched the family that had -hitherto known only economy and hard work. One day Franklin came down to -breakfast to find that Deborah had served his bread and milk not in his -usual two-penny earthenware crock, but in a china bowl. Instead of his -old pewter spoon, there was one of silver. - -“What is the meaning of this, Debby?” - -“My Pappy can afford a china bowl and a silver spoon now,” she said. - - - - - 4 - THE CIVIC-MINDED CITIZEN - - -There were two children in the Franklin family now. The first was -William, the other, Francis Folger, whom the father called Franky. He -was proud of his sons. He had reason to want to be a good example to -them. - -One day he drew up a list of thirteen “virtues” as follows: - - Temperance (eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation) - Silence (speak not but what may benefit others or yourself) - Order - Resolution (perform without fail what you resolve) - Frugality - Industry - Sincerity - Justice (wrong none by doing injuries) - Moderation - Cleanliness - Tranquillity - Chastity - Humility (imitate Jesus and Socrates) - -Franklin’s ambitious project was to try to achieve all these virtues, -thus to approach as near as possible moral perfection. This was no New -Year’s Resolution to be lightly made and quickly forgotten. He purchased -a small notebook, ruled the pages with red ink, making seven vertical -columns, one for each day of the week, and thirteen horizontal columns, -one for each virtue. - -Each time he felt he had failed to practice one of his virtues he made a -black mark in the proper square. Thus if he put a cross in the Tuesday -column opposite Silence, he judged he had that day talked too much about -trivial matters. The thirteenth virtue, Humility, suggested by a Quaker -friend, was a check on the others; if he was proud of his mastery over -any of his virtues, he would be lacking in humility. - -He kept this notebook regularly for a long time. The virtue which gave -him most trouble was Order (let all your things have their places; let -each part of your business have its time). Eventually he had to decide -that he was not an orderly person and never would be. Nor did he ever -claim that he achieved anywhere near “moral perfection” in any of the -others, although he did give credit years later to his daily discipline -for “the constant felicity of my life.” - -It is unlikely that in any other part of the world a grown and -prospering businessman would have resolved to make himself more -virtuous, with all the diligence of a schoolboy attacking a problem in -arithmetic. His act was typically American. The colonies were young and -growing and pliable, not old and set in their ways like the European -nations. Young countries, like young people, harbor the seeds of -idealism, yearnings for greatness, deep-rooted desires to be better in -any or every sphere of activity than their predecessors or -contemporaries. The youthful spirit that was part and parcel of America -remained with Benjamin Franklin to the end of his days. - -He was always trying to enlarge his mental horizons. For that aim he -taught himself French, Italian, Spanish, and German, not yet dreaming -that he would ever have practical use for these languages. He was at the -same time widening his business activities, starting a branch of his -printing shop in Charleston, South Carolina, on a partnership -arrangement. It was the first of many branches. - -In 1733, after an absence of ten years, he went back to Boston to see -his family. His parents were well but there were some sad changes. Four -of his sisters and one of his brothers had died. Jane, his beautiful -young sister, closer to him than anyone else in the family, had been -married for six years to a saddler named Edward Mecom, and had two boys, -but her husband was in poor health and her children were also sickly. -Tragedy had cast its first shadow over her. She would in the years to -come lose her husband and twelve children, two of them dying insane, as -the result of some unknown inherited sickness. - -James was living in Newport, and on his way back to Philadelphia, -Franklin paid this older brother a visit. Their reunion was cordial and -old differences were ignored if not forgotten. James too was sick and -knew that death was not far away. His former apprentice promised to take -care of James’ son and teach him the printing business. When James died -two years later, Franklin sent the boy to school for five years and then -took him into his home as an apprentice, thus making James “ample amends -for the service I had depriv’d him of by leaving him so early.” - -All his life he would be giving aid—jobs, partnerships, loans, gifts -and, less welcome, advice—to his family, his in-laws, his nieces, -nephews, friends, and children of friends. The assistance was sometimes -unappreciated and seldom rewarded. It played havoc with virtue number -four, Frugality. Nor, as he had omitted the virtue of generosity from -his list, did he ever give himself any good marks for such services. - -Sorrow struck him personally on November 21, 1736, when Francis Folger, -a grave and sweet-faced lad of four, died of smallpox. In the midst of -his terrible grief, Franklin refuted a false rumor. It was not true, he -wrote in the _Gazette_, that his boy had died as the result of smallpox -inoculation. Had he been inoculated, his life might have been spared. He -felt it important that his readers should know that he considered -inoculation “a safe and beneficial practice.” - -The year of his son’s death, he was appointed clerk to the Pennsylvania -Assembly, and the following year he was made postmaster of Philadelphia. -These were his first official positions, and there was pay and prestige -attached to both. What matter if the Assembly sessions were so tedious -he worked out mathematical puzzles to keep himself awake, and that his -home on High Street now housed the city post office in addition to the -Franklins, various relatives of both of them for varying lengths of -times, servants, apprentices, and on occasion journeymen who had no -other lodgings. - -He had six of these workmen now, including a Swede and a German, which -made it possible to print in those languages. They were all kept busy. -He was public printer for Delaware, New Jersey and Maryland. Besides the -_Almanack_ and the _Gazette_, a number of books were coming off the High -Street presses: Cato’s _Moral Distichs; The Constitution of the -Free-Masons_, the first Masonic book printed in America; Cadwallader -Colden’s _An Explication of the First Causes of Motion in Matter_; and -Richardson’s _Pamela_, the first novel printed in America. - -Their stationer’s shop now sold books as well as an astounding range of -miscellany: goose quills, chocolate, cordials, cheese, codfish, -compasses, scarlet broadcloth, four-wheeled chaises, Seneca rattlesnake -root with directions on how to use it for pleurisy, ointments and salves -for the “itch” and other ailments, made by the Widow Read, Debby’s -mother, and fine green Crown soap, unique in the colonies, produced by -Franklin’s brothers John and Peter who had learned the secret of its -composition from their father. - -In all this hustle and bustle, Franklin reigned as instigator and -executor. He was a little heavier, his brown hair somewhat thinner, his -face more mature, and his manner more calm and assured, but in his eyes -was the same merriment of the Boston youth. Around the house and shop, -he dressed in working clothes, red flannel shirt, leather breeches, and -his old leather apron. - -For meetings of the Masons or for dinners with prominent Philadelphians -who were now demanding his company, he had more elegant attire. On such -occasions he might wear his best black cloth breeches, velvet jacket, a -Holland shirt with ruffles at the wrist and neck, calfskin shoes, -high-quality worsted stockings, and a fashionable wig. - -Debby never accompanied him to such affairs, nor would she have been -comfortable if she had done so. The years of their marriage had put a -wider social and intellectual gap between them. While Franklin had -cultivated his mental powers and learned to speak as an equal to anyone, -she was the same Debby he had married, grown older and plumper. Her -voice was still rough, her language uncouth, her manners hearty, and her -taste in clothes flamboyant. He never tried to change her. He -appreciated her loyalty, her industry, her warm heart, and asked for -nothing more. “My plain Country Joan,” he called her in a ballad he -wrote and sang for the members of the Junto: - - Of their Chloes and Phyllises poets may prate, - I sing my plain Country Joan, - These twelve years my wife, still the joy of my life, - Blest day that I made her my own. - -As for Debby, had anyone told her that her husband would one day be -among the most famous men in the world, she would have laughed in his -face. Not her “Pappy”—as she always called him. Not that he wasn’t the -best of husbands, a good provider, and really handy at doing things -around the house. - -She must have clapped her hands in delight at the stove he set up in -their common room in 1740. Houses then were mostly heated by fireplaces. -Large or small, they had in common that one was scorched on approaching -the fire too closely and chilled at the far side of the room. It was -impossible for a woman to sit by the window to sew on a winter day. Her -fingers would be too stiff with cold to hold a needle. It was taken for -granted that everyone had colds during the winter months, especially the -women, who of necessity were indoors more than the men. There was the -problem of smoke too. With the usual fireplace, most of the smoke came -into the room instead of going up the chimney, blackening curtains and -spreading soot everywhere. - -Franklin’s Pennsylvania Fireplace, later called the Franklin Stove, was -made of cast iron, could be taken apart and moved easily from room to -room. It spread no smoke and, most amazingly, heated the entire room an -almost equal temperature. - -Debby’s sole complaint about her husband had to do with the way he -spoiled his son William. Ever since the death of little Franky, he -humored the boy to excess. William had a string of private -schoolmasters—one of them decamped with Franklin’s wardrobe when William -was nine. He had his own pony, like the sons of the rich. Whatever the -boy wanted, he managed to wangle from his indulgent father. “The -greatest villain on earth,” Debby once called this clever lad. The two -of them never did get along. - -Even William had to take second place after their first and only -daughter, Sarah, was born in 1743. Sarah would bring to her father joy -and comfort to modify the pain caused by his son. - -He was busy that year with a new project. In May he issued a circular -letter headed “Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge Among the British -Plantations in North America,” which be mailed to men of learning -throughout the colonies. Now that the first drudgery of settling was -over, he wrote, the time had come “to cultivate the finer arts and -improve the common stock.” - -For this purpose, he proposed formation of an organization whose -members, through meetings or by correspondence, would exchange -information on all new scientific discoveries or inventions, and he -offered his own services as secretary “till they shall be provided with -one more capable.” From this letter grew the American Philosophical -Society, which came into being the following year. (The words -“philosophical” and “scientific” were then used as synonyms.) Its -activities were parallel to those of the famous Royal Society in London. - -One of Franklin’s first contributions to the new society was a paper on -his “Pennsylvania Fireplace,” which he and Debby had been enjoying -several years, including diagrams and instructions on how to install it. -He refused to patent his invention: “As we enjoy great advantages from -the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve -others by any invention of ours.” - -Also in 1743 he printed his “Proposal Relating to the Education of Youth -in Pennsylvania,” a pamphlet suggesting an academy of learning to match -Yale, Harvard, and William and Mary College at Williamsburg. He launched -this plan not as his own but as coming from some “public-spirited -gentlemen,” a tactical approach he had figured out to be more effective -than using his own name. - -The academy, he wrote, should be “not far from a river, having a garden, -orchard, meadow, and a field or two.” It should have a library. The -students—youths from eight to sixteen—should “diet together plainly, -temperately, and frugally.” They should be trained in running, leaping, -wrestling, and swimming. - -Subjects studied should be “those things that are likely to be most -useful and most ornamental.” All should be taught to “write a fair hand” -and to learn drawing, “a universal language, understood by all nations.” -They should learn grammar, with Addison, Pope, and Cato’s _Letters_ as -models. He stressed the importance of elocution: “pronouncing properly, -distinctly, emphatically.” The curriculum should include mathematics, -astronomy, history, geography, ancient customs, morality, but not Latin -and Greek, unless a student had “an ardent desire to learn them.” - -Franklin’s ideal and surprisingly modern academy was also to teach -practical matters: invention, manufactures, trade, mechanics, “that art -by which weak men perform such wonders ...,” planting and grafting. -There should be “now and then excursions made to the neighboring -plantations of the best farmers, their methods observed and reasoned -upon for the information of youth.” - -This “Proposal” was the genesis of the University of Pennsylvania, which -in six years’ time—1749—became a reality. (Franklin was elected first -president, a post he held seven years.) - -Philadelphia had as yet no regular police force. Its dark and narrow -streets were in theory guarded by the local citizens, appointed in -rotation by the ward constables. Often citizens preferred to pay the six -shillings required to hire a substitute, money which might be dissipated -in drink, leaving streets unguarded, or to pay the very ruffians against -whom protection was needed. To abolish such abuses, Franklin persuaded -his Junto members to campaign for a paid police force, which was voted a -few years later. - -Also through the Junto, he called public attention to Philadelphia’s -fire hazards and means of avoiding them. From this effort came the Union -Fire Company, the first organized firemen in the colonies. Subsequently, -he was responsible for the first fire insurance company in the colonies. - -Since 1739, England had been at war with Spain, and in 1744, war with -France erupted. The struggle involved the colonies when, in July 1747, -French and Spanish privateers plundered two plantations on the Delaware -River, a little below New Castle. There were rumors of a French plan to -sack Philadelphia. The city had no defenses. The Quaker-dominated -Assembly had refused to vote money for war purposes. - -Seeing danger threaten, Franklin published “Plain Truth,” a pamphlet -which succeeded in convincing even the Quakers of the need for -preparedness. Under his leadership, Pennsylvania’s first volunteer -militia, with some 10,000 members, was formed. He was offered the post -of colonel in the Philadelphia branch. He declined, preferring to serve -as a common soldier. William, now sixteen, was also in service, not in -the militia but in a company raised by the British for a campaign -against French Canada. - -In 1748, France, Spain and England settled their difficulties -temporarily in the peace treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. For the time being, -the colonies were free from danger of invasion or attack. At last the -Franklin family could return to normal life. - -He was forty-two and by the standards of the time a rich man. Since his -income was sufficient for his needs, he made up his mind to retire. A -fellow printer named David Hall took over the management of his printing -shop. Franklin moved to a quiet part of town, at Race and Second -streets, and bought a 300-acre farm in Burlington, New Jersey, where he -could practice the art of a gentleman farmer. - -It was time, he believed, to devote the remaining years of his life to -his friends, to his writing, to the pursuit of learning. Particularly a -branch of learning that had occupied his attention on and off for the -past several years—the study of electricity. - - - - - 5 - THE THUNDER GIANT - - -A few years before his retirement, Franklin, on a visit to Boston, -attended a display of electrical tricks given by a Dr. Adam Spencer of -Scotland. There is no record of the nature of these “electrical tricks.” -Franklin commented later that Dr. Spencer was no expert and that they -were imperfectly performed. Since he had never seen anything of the sort -before, he was “surpris’d and pleased.” - -That sparks could be produced by friction had been known since ancient -times. Little more was known about electricity until, in the first part -of the eighteenth century, a young Frenchman, Charles François du Fay, -identified two different types of electricity: _vitreous_, produced by -rubbing glass with silk; _resinous_, produced by rubbing resin with wool -or fur. Such frictional electricity was brief-lived. Sparks flashed and -were gone, and that was the end of it. - -Was there any way in which electric charges could be preserved from the -rapid decay which they underwent in the air? Around 1747 two scientists -were working independently on this problem—E. C. von Kleist of Pomerania -and Pieter van Musschenbroek of the University of Leyden. Within a few -months of each other, they had found a method of storing electricity in -a container. The Leyden jar, this container was named. It was the first -electrical condenser. - -In one experiment Musschenbroek suspended a glass phial of water from a -gun barrel by a wire which went down through a cork in the phial a few -inches into the water. The gun barrel, hanging on a silk rope, had a -metallic fringe inserted into the barrel which touched an electrically -charged glass globe. A friend who was watching him, a man named Cunaeus, -happened to grasp the phial with one hand and the wire with another. -Immediately he felt a strange and startling sensation—reportedly the -first manmade electric shock in history. - -Musschenbroek repeated what Cunaeus had done, this time using a small -glass bowl as his “Leyden jar.” “I would not take a second shock for the -King of France,” he said. - -Van Kleist in Pomerania produced the same effect. He lined the inside -and outside of his Leyden jar with silver foil, charged the inner coat -heavily, connected it with the outer foil by a wire which he held in his -hand—and felt a violent shock run into his arm and chest. - -A Leyden jar could take any number of forms. Even a wine bottle would -serve. The type used most frequently during the next few years was a -glass tube, some two and a half feet long, and just big enough around so -that a man might grasp it easily in his hand. The advantage of this size -and shape was that it could most conveniently be electrified, which was -then done by hand, by rubbing the glass with a cloth or buckskin. This -simple device gave impetus to research on electricity throughout Europe. -It also provided a new form of entertainment. - -Performers went from town to town with their Leyden jars, giving -spectators the thrill of receiving electric shocks, and extolling the -marvels of “electrical fire.” Louis XV of France invited his guests to -watch a novel spectacle arranged by his court philosopher, Abbé -Jean-Antoine Nollet. The King’s Guard in full uniform lined up before -the throne, holding hands. The first one was instructed to grasp the -wire or chain connected to the Leyden jar. They all jumped convulsively -into the air as an electric current passed through them. - -In Italy some scientists tried to cure paralysis by electric shock, -claiming moderate success. In May 1748, for instance, Jean-François -Calgagnia, thirty-five years old, was given an electric shock from a -simple cylinder-type Leyden jar. Since the age of twelve, his left arm -had been so paralyzed he could not lift his hand to his head. After the -first electrical treatment he at once raised his arm and touched his -face. There is no record as to whether the cure was permanent. - -After Franklin became aware of this phenomenon, he was agog to try -experiments on his own. He wrote of his interest to a London friend, -Peter Collinson, a Quaker merchant and member of the Royal Society. -Collinson promptly sent him a glass tube, along with suggestions as to -how it might be used for electrical experiments. This was all Franklin -needed to get started. - -He was not trained in scientific matters as were many of his European -contemporaries. He was unfamiliar with scientific jargon, and could only -write about what he was doing in everyday language. But he had those -qualities that are innate in any scientist, with or without a university -degree—an inquiring mind, patience, and persistence. - -His experiments, beginning with the winter of 1746, covered a wide -range. He melted brass and steel needles by electricity, magnetized -needles, fired dry gunpowder by an electric spark. He stripped the -gilding from a book, and he electrified a small metallic crown above an -engraving of the King of England—so that whoever touched the crown -received a shock! - -His home was soon so crowded with curious visitors trooping up and down -the stairs, he could hardly get any work done. He solved the problem by -having a glass blower make tubes similar to his, passing them out to -friends so they could make their own experiments. - -Several of the Junto members worked closely with him. At first they -electrified the tube, as was still done in Europe, by vigorously rubbing -one side of it with a piece of buckskin. One of the club members, a -Silversmith named Philip Synge, devised a sort of grindstone, which -revolved the tube as one turned a handle. To charge the tube with -electricity, all that was needed was to hold the buckskin against the -glass as it revolved, a vast saving in physical labor. - -Another invention of Franklin and his associates was the first storage -battery. For electrical plates they used eleven window glass panes about -six by eight inches in size, covered with sheets of lead, and hung on -silk cords by means of hooks of lead wire. They found it as easy to -charge this “battery” with frictional electricity as to charge a single -pane of glass. - -Among his disciples was an unemployed Baptist minister named Ebenezer -Kinnersley. Franklin suggested he might both serve science and earn his -living if he held electrical demonstrations. Kinnersley’s first -announcement of a lecture, held in Newport, described “electrical fire” -as having “an appearance like fishes swimming in the air,” claiming this -fire would “live in water, a river not being sufficient to quench the -smallest spark of it.” He promised his audience such wonders as -“electrified money, which scarce anybody will take when offered ... a -curious machine acting by means of electric fire, and playing a variety -of tunes on eight musical bells ... the force of the electric spark, -making a fair hole through a quire of paper....” - -Kinnersley lectured in the colonies and the West Indies and was hugely -successful. Neither he nor any of the other collaborators could rival -Franklin’s own achievements. - -Early in 1747, he gave the names of positive and negative (or plus and -minus) to the two types of electricity, to replace the unwieldy terms, -resinous and vitreous. Positive and negative electricity became part of -the scientific vocabulary. He was the first to refer to the -_conductivity_ of certain substances. Electricity passed easily through -metals and water; they were _conductive_. Glass and wood were -_nonconductive_, unless they were wet. He also noted that pointed metal -rods were wonderfully effective “in drawing off and throwing off the -electrical fire.” - -After he retired in 1748, he spent much more time on electricity. To -Peter Collinson in London he wrote, “I never was before engaged in any -study that so totally engrossed my attention and my time as this has -lately done.” He kept Collinson informed in detail of his experiments, -not because he thought he had the final word but in the hope that his -experiments might possibly prove helpful to English scientists. - -It was to Collinson he described an electrical party to be held on the -banks of the Schuylkill River in the spring of 1749: “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 an electrical battery.” - -For Christmas dinner that year, he started to electrocute another -turkey, but inadvertently gave himself the shock intended for the fowl: -“The company present ... say that the flash was very great and the crack -as loud as a pistol.... I neither saw the one nor heard the other.... I -then felt ... a universal blow throughout my whole body from head to -foot.... 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.” - -He was apologetic rather than frightened by the near catastrophe, -comparing himself to the Irishman “who, being about to steal powder, -made a hole in the cask with a hot iron.” - -This was soon after he had come to the conclusion that what he now -called “electrical fluid” had much in common with lightning—that indeed -they might be one and the same thing. He was not the first to propose -this theory but no one before him had been able to suggest how it might -be tested. - -Thunder and lightning had mystified humanity since the beginning of -recorded history. The Greeks had held that thunderbolts were launched by -the god Jupiter. (One Greek philosopher, Empedocles, thought that -lightning was caused by the rays of the sun striking the clouds.) -Hunters of primitive tribes prayed to the god of lightning, who was a -killer, as they wished to be. Certain medicine men were said to be -endowed with the gift of summoning lightning at will. - -Since biblical days, lightning was assumed to be an act of heavenly -vengeance, but no one could explain the paradox that it struck church -steeples more frequently than other buildings. In medieval times, people -believed that ringing church bells would keep lightning away, a belief -that survived the death of countless unfortunate bell ringers. - -About 1718, an English scientist, Jonathan Edwards, suggested that -thunder and lightning might be produced by a “mighty fermentation, that -is some way promoted by the cool moisture, and perhaps attraction of the -clouds.” There had been very few other attempts to give a scientific -explanation of the phenomenon, and even in Franklin’s time many -preachers considered lightning a manifestation of the Divine Will. - -“Electrical fluid” and lightning had in common, Franklin wrote in his -notes on November 7, 1749, that they both gave light, had a crooked -direction and swift motion, and were conducted by metals. Both melted -metals and could destroy animals. Since they were similar in so many -respects, would it not follow that lightning, like “electrical fluid” -would be attracted by pointed rods? “Let the experiment be made.” - -By May 1750, he was sure enough of his hypothesis that he elaborated to -Peter Collinson the advantages to humanity of what later were called -lightning rods: - - I am of the opinion that houses, ships, and even towers and churches - may be effectually secured from the strokes of lightning ... if, - instead of the round balls of wood or metal which are commonly placed - on tops of weathercocks, vanes, or masts, there should be a rod of - iron eight or ten feet in length, sharpened gradually to a point like - a needle ... the electric fire would, I think, be drawn out of a cloud - silently, before it could come near enough to strike.... - -Did he guess that he was on the verge of the most momentous discovery of -the century—one which would assure his name a place among the immortals? -It is fairly certain he was more interested in solving a perplexing -problem than in immortality. Possibly he took it for granted that -European scientists were already three steps ahead of him. - -By July he had prepared a manuscript describing all his exciting -experiments of the past two years, and including specific instructions -for setting up a lightning rod on a tower or steeple, even to the -necessary feature of a grounding wire. “Let the experiment be made,” he -had said. He did not make it himself, not then. For one thing, he was -waiting for a spire to be erected on the top of Christ Church, from -which he wished to make his first try of drawing lightning from the -skies. Also, in spite of his alleged retirement, his days were becoming -increasingly filled with public duties. - -He still had the Gazette and _Poor Richard’s Almanack_ to publish and -edit. Beginning in 1748, he served on the City Council. Since 1749 he -was Grand Master of the Masons. In 1751 he was made an alderman and a -member of the Pennsylvania Assembly, where previously he had served as -clerk. - -In 1750, an American Philosophical Society member, Dr. Thomas Bond, came -to him for help in starting a hospital for the sick and the insane. -Hitherto those who could not pay for medical care had no choice but the -prison or the almshouse. The need was urgent but Dr. Bond had failed to -arouse interest in his project. - -“Those whom I ask to subscribe,” he confided to Franklin, “often ask me -whether I have consulted you and what you think of it. When I tell them -I have not, they don’t subscribe.” - -Franklin knew promotion methods as Dr. Bond did not, and began by -calling a meeting of citizens. Under his impetus the list of subscribers -grew, though not until May 1755 was the cornerstone of the Pennsylvania -Hospital laid on Eighth Street between Spruce and Pine. Nearly thirty -years later, when Dr. Benjamin Rush joined the staff, the “lunatics” at -Pennsylvania Hospital received the first intelligent care available in -America and, with few exceptions, in the world. - -Franklin was also busy during this period in the formation of America’s -first insurance company (stemming from a meeting of Philadelphia -businessmen in 1752), and was taking the lead in organizing an -expedition in search of a Northwest Passage, under Captain Charles -Swaine, America’s first voyage of Arctic exploration. - -In the category of pleasure were the infrequent periods he spent on his -Burlington farm, where he raised corn, red clover, herd grass and oats, -recording with scientific precision the effects of frost and the results -obtained from different types of soil. He was one of the earliest -Americans to think of agriculture as a science. He never could persuade -his farmer neighbors to follow his example. They held that the ways of -their forefathers were inevitably the best. - -It may have been at his farm that he made his experiment on ants. Some -ants had found their way into an earthen pot of molasses. He shook out -all but one and hung the pot by a string to a nail in the ceiling. When -the ant had dined to its satisfaction, it climbed up the string and down -the wall to the floor. Half an hour later, he noted a swarm of ants -retracing its course back to the pot—exactly as though their comrade had -verbally informed them where to go for a good meal. - -There were few mysteries of nature on which at one time or another -Franklin did not direct his attention. More often than not, he wrote his -speculations in long and entertaining and gracefully phrased letters to -his friends, men and women alike. - -If he was not impatient to learn what Peter Collinson thought of his -proposed lightning rods, it was simply that he had no time for -impatience. The truth was that Collinson had found his paper fascinating -and had even read it to the Royal Society. As the Society members -remained skeptical and unimpressed, in 1751 he arranged for it to be -printed in a pamphlet—“Experiments and Observations on Electricity, Made -at Philadelphia, in America.” Dr. John Fothergill, a London physician, -wrote the preface. The pamphlet was translated into French the next -year, creating immediate excitement. - -Three French scientists, the naturalist Count Georges Louis Buffon, -Thomas François d’Alibard, and another named de Lor, resolved to carry -out the experiment on drawing lightning from the skies, which Franklin -had outlined. - -It was d’Alibard who succeeded first. At Marly, outside of Paris, he set -up a pointed iron rod forty feet long, not on a church steeple as -Franklin had recommended, but simply on a square plank with legs made of -three wine bottles to insulate it from the ground. During a -thunderstorm, on May 10, 1752, a crash of thunder was followed by a -crackling sound—and sparks flew out from the rod. Here then was absolute -proof that Franklin was right. Lightning and electricity were identical. - -De Lor repeated the experiment in Paris eight days later. Louis XV, King -of France, was so moved that he sent congratulations to the Royal -Society, to be relayed to Messieurs Franklin and Peter Collinson. The -first successful experiment in London was made by John Canton. Soon it -was being repeated throughout Europe. The name of Benjamin Franklin was -on everyone’s tongue. - -No news of all this had yet been brought on the slow sailing ships when, -in June 1752, Franklin decided not to wait for the completion of the -Christ Church spire for his experiment. He had another scheme. Why not -try to draw electricity from the skies with a kite? - -“Make a small cross of two light strips of cedar, the arms so long as to -reach to the four corners of a large thin silk handkerchief when -extended; tie the corners of the handkerchief to the extremities of the -cross.” Thus he later described the body of this world famous kite. Like -ordinary kites, it had a tail, loop, and string. At the top of the -vertical cedar strip, he fastened a sharp pointed wire about a foot -long. At the end of the string he tied a silk ribbon. He fastened a -small key at the juncture of silk and twine. - -With this child’s plaything, he and his tall full-grown son, William, -took off across the fields one threatening summer day. They let the wind -raise the kite into the air and they waited. Even before it began -raining, Franklin observed some loose threads from the hempen string -standing erect. He pressed his knuckle to the key—and an electric spark -shot out. There were more sparks when the thunderstorm began. After the -string was wet, the “electric fire” was “copious.” - -He must have grinned triumphantly at William, and perhaps said casually, -“Well, Billy, we’ve done it.” - -There is no evidence that he realized his experiment might be dangerous, -even deadly. - -The first account of the “Electrical Kite” appeared five months later in -the October 19, 1752, issue of the _Gazette_. _Poor Richard’s Almanack_ -for 1753 contained complete instructions on how to build a lightning -rod. He had already put one up on his own chimney. It had small bells -which chimed when clouds containing electricity passed by. The bells -rang in his house for years. - -News of his triumphs abroad were now flooding in. The praise of the -French king, he wrote a friend, made him feel like the girl “who was -observed to grow suddenly proud, and none could guess the reason, till -it came to be known that she had got on a new pair of garters.” The -Royal Society, making up for lost time, published an account of his kite -in _Transactions_, their official paper, and in November 1753, gave him -the Copley gold medal for “his curious experiments and observations on -electricity.” They conservatively held off making him a member of the -Society until May 29, 1756. At home, Harvard, Yale, and William and Mary -College in turn gave him honorary degrees of master of arts. - -While these and other tributes were being heaped on him, he was -launching into a new profession—that of military expert and officer. - - - - - 6 - A BRIEF MILITARY CAREER - - -In 1753, trouble was brewing once more between Great Britain and France, -with the colonists caught in the middle. While English subjects in -America were as yet confined to a narrow strip along the Atlantic, -France held Canada and the St. Lawrence Valley to the north; New Orleans -and the great Louisiana territory in the south. By right of early -explorations, the French also claimed the rich Ohio Valley region and -were building forts along the Ohio and Allegheny rivers. The British -considered these forts an intrusion on _their_ territory. - -As the situation grew more tense, both British and French courted the -favor of the Indians. In Pennsylvania this would have been easier had -the policy of William Penn been followed; he had gone further than any -other white man in establishing friendly Indian relations. -Unfortunately, much of his work had been undone by his son Thomas, in -the episode known as the Walking Purchase. - -To make room for his immigrants, William Penn had once purchased a tract -of land from the Indians to extend “as far as a man could walk in three -days.” In 1683, he had leisurely walked out a day and a half of this -purchase, some twenty-five miles. In 1737, fifty years later, Thomas -Penn decided to take up the rest of the Walking Purchase. He hired three -athletes to do the walking for him. In a day and a half, they managed to -cover eighty-six miles. The Indians had never forgiven this underhanded -trick. - -It was partially to undo this bad feeling that in September 1753 -Franklin and several other commissioners were sent by Governor James -Hamilton to Carlisle, some 125 miles west of Philadelphia, to meet with -chiefs of the Delaware and Shawnee Indians and the Six Nations (the name -given to the united Iroquois tribes). - -Franklin had never been so far inland before nor had he any previous -dealings with the original Americans. He was impressed with the -ceremonial exchange of gifts and greetings which preceded the actual -conference. These “savages” of whom he had heard such disparaging things -had customs very different from those of the white man, but “savage -justice,” as he was to write later, had as much to recommend it as -“civilized justice.” - -The grievances presented by the chiefs after the conference began he -found reasonable. They wanted, from the white man, fewer trading posts -and more honest traders. They wanted to be sold less rum, which was -ruinous to the braves, and more gunpowder, which they needed for -hunting. The commissioners promised to do their best and, as they had -been authorized to do, offered the Indians protection from the French, -in return for their loyalty. Unfortunately, neither colonies nor British -were in a position to guarantee such protection. - -Franklin returned from Carlisle to learn that he had been appointed -deputy postmaster, with William Hunter of Williamsburg, of all the North -American provinces. He had the prestige of being an officer of the Crown -though the pay was nominal—only 600 pounds a year divided between him -and Hunter should the service make a profit—and the work was -considerable, for Hunter was ill and could give little help. - -He could and did provide his family with jobs. William, his son, became -postmaster of Philadelphia, Franklin’s former job. William later turned -this post over to a relative of Debby’s who in due time was succeeded by -Franklin’s brother Peter. He appointed another brother, John, postmaster -of Boston. At John’s death his widow succeeded him, thought to be the -first American woman to hold a public office. - -Not only his family but all of America profited by Franklin’s -appointment. Horseback riders carried mail in colonial America. Delivery -was slow, irregular and costly. Franklin acted as an efficiency expert. -He increased mail deliveries from Philadelphia to New York from once a -week to three times a week during the warmer six months of the year and -he made sure his riders did the route twice a week in the winter except -in the worst weather. In time he visited all the post offices of the -colonies, studied their local problems, surveyed roads, ferries, and -fords. He started America’s first Dead Letter Office, and gave patrons -other services they had never had before. By the time he had held the -post eight years, not only could he and Hunter collect their full -salaries but there was a surplus for the London office, the first time -it had ever profited from its American branch. - -Late in 1753, Governor Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia sent young Major -George Washington on a journey to the French Fort Le Boeuf (now Erie, -Pennsylvania) to order the French to evacuate. They chose to ignore the -warning. - -Franklin attended another conference with the Six Nations, held at -Albany, New York, in June 1754, attended by commissioners from seven -colonies. In regard to Indian relations, the Albany conference was no -more successful than the one at Carlisle. Afterward the Indians claimed -they had been persuaded to deed a tract of land whose boundaries they -had not grasped and that the deed was irregular since, contrary to the -Six Nations’ custom, it gave away land of tribes whose representatives -had not signed the deed. - -Thus the two meetings had the opposite effect of what had been hoped. -They succeeded only in antagonizing the Indians. Many of them decided to -support the French, as the lesser of the two white evils. - -It is most unlikely that Franklin suspected any wrong being perpetrated -on the Indians. During the Albany conference he presented to his fellow -commissioners a plan which had its inspiration from Six Nations. If the -Iroquois tribes could work together harmoniously, why should the -American colonies, allegedly civilized, always be quarreling? -Accordingly, he proposed they form a confederacy under a single -president-general appointed by the Crown. - -The commissioners approved wholeheartedly but that was as far as he got. -When his plan was presented to the assemblies of the various colonies, -it was rejected as being too dictatorial. The Crown opposed it as being -too democratic. In a final effort to make his point he published in the -_Gazette_ America’s first cartoon, a drawing of a snake chopped in eight -pieces, each marked with the initials of different colonies. “Join or -Die” read the caption. But he was several years in advance of the times. - -Even while the Albany conference was under way, seven hundred French -soldiers and Indians forced the surrender of Fort Necessity, a small -barricade fifty miles from Wills Creek, held by George Washington, now a -colonel, and a scant 400 men. The nine-year French and Indian Wars were -unofficially under way. - -In December, six months later, General Edward Braddock landed in -Virginia with two regiments of British regulars. They had come to take -the French Fort Duquesne, located on the forks of the Ohio (where -Pittsburgh now stands). The Pennsylvania Assembly sent Franklin to meet -the general at Frederickstown and offer his services as postmaster. -Franklin with his son William spent several days with Braddock. He found -the general a master of European military strategy but more than a -little arrogant. - -“After taking Fort Duquesne,” Braddock announced one night at dinner, “I -will proceed to Niagara; and, having taken that, to Frontenac, if the -season will allow time; and I suppose it will, for Duquesne can hardly -detain me above three or four days.” - -In his mind, Franklin pictured the long line of Braddock’s army marching -along a narrow road cut through thick woods and bushes, and he was -uneasy. He was sure, he told the general, that there would be scant -resistance at Duquesne, if he arrived there. The danger would be Indian -ambush on the way. - -Braddock smiled patronizingly. “These savages may, indeed, be a -formidable enemy to your raw American militia, but upon the king’s -regular and disciplined troops, sir, it is impossible they should make -any impression.” - -Franklin did not press his doubts. It would have been improper for him -to argue with a military man about his own profession. Braddock was only -too glad to let Franklin hunt up some transport wagons for him. This he -did by distributing circulars through Lancaster, York and Cumberland -counties. Within two weeks Pennsylvania farmers had come through with -the loan of 150 wagons and 259 horses. Of the 1,000 pounds due the -owners in payment, Braddock paid 800 and Franklin advanced the extra 200 -pounds on his own. Since the farmers knew and trusted him, he, rather -than Braddock, gave them his bond for the full cost. - -After he returned to Philadelphia, he persuaded the Assembly to donate -twenty parcels for the regiment officers, each containing six pounds of -sugar, a pound of tea, six pounds of coffee, six pounds of chocolate, as -well as biscuit, cheese, butter, wine, cured hams. He sent along other -supplies for the soldiers, advancing 1,000 pounds more of his own money -to cover the costs. Barely had he been reimbursed for his expenses thus -far, when the disastrous news broke. - -Braddock’s army—some 1,400 British regulars and 700 colonial -militiamen—was ambushed by a force of French, Canadians, and Indians on -July 9, 1755, when they were within seven miles of Fort Duquesne. -Terrified at the shooting from this invisible enemy, the regulars -panicked. Nearly a thousand were killed or wounded, including most of -the officers. George Washington, who was serving as Braddock’s aide, -stayed to fight a valiant rear guard action. Braddock was mortally -wounded, dying four days later. - -At the start of the fray, the drivers took one horse from each team and -raced off, leaving wagons, food parcels and provisions to the attackers. -Since Franklin had given bond, the wagon owners soon appeared, demanding -recompense for their losses—a total of some 20,000 pounds. He faced ruin -until October when the new British commander-in-chief, Governor Shirley, -authorized government payment of the debt. - -In the midst of that summer’s harassment and disaster, there was one -pleasant interlude. On a trip to visit Rhode Island post offices, -Franklin met a delightful young lady named Catherine Ray. Middle-aged -and tending to stoutness as he was, she lavished affection on him, not -as a suitor but as someone to whom she could confide her innermost -thoughts. Though he saw Catherine only infrequently after that meeting, -she later married a worthy young man named William Greene by whom she -had six children—she and Franklin wrote each other lengthy and intimate -letters as long as they lived. Until he met her, apart from Debby, his -friendships had all been with men. Beginning with Catherine, he had many -women friends, who found in him a rare understanding of their qualities -of mind and spirit. - -The defeat of Braddock taught the colonists that the British military -was not as invincible as they had been led to believe. Many more Indians -joined the French, deciding they were most likely to win. In the summer -of 1755, Indian raiders were attacking isolated farms less than 100 -miles from Philadelphia. It was obvious that once again Pennsylvania -must provide its own defense. - -A bill to vote 60,000 pounds for the militia was presented to the -Pennsylvania Assembly. At first the Quakers opposed it, but with great -tact Franklin won from them a concession that even though they bore no -arms themselves they would not object if others did so. There was still -more dissension on the subject of taxes. Franklin and many others -believed that the taxes should be raised from all the landholders in the -province. The lawyer for “the proprietors” claimed that the Penn family -should be exempt from such taxes, as they always had been. He was -supported by the conservatives in the Assembly and by Governor Robert -Hunter Morris, who owed his appointment to the Penns. - -Eventually the Penns compromised by offering 5,000 pounds toward the -militia as a gift. The question as to whether or not their vast lands -should be taxed remained unsettled, to trouble the future. Thomas Penn, -who was living in London, was duly informed that Benjamin Franklin was a -crafty man who could bend the Assembly to his will. - -On November 24, 1755, a Shawnee war party burned down the Moravian -village of Gnadenhuetten, 75 miles from Philadelphia, killing all the -inhabitants except a few who escaped into the forests. The crime was the -more appalling since the Moravians were as opposed to violence as the -Quakers. They were a gentle, devout people who had befriended the -Indians. The next day the Assembly appointed Franklin to head a -committee of seven to manage the funds for the defense. More -responsibilities on his shoulders, more decisions to make, arguments to -settle, hotheads to calm down. - -“All the world claims the privilege of troubling my Pappy,” wailed -Deborah to a clerk named Daniel Fisher whom Franklin had just hired. - -A few weeks later Franklin set out on horseback with 50 cavalrymen to -recruit volunteers, and check on defenses in outlying districts—a -strenuous assignment for a man nearly fifty and sedentary in his habits. -William served as his aide. Theoretically, James Hamilton, a former -governor, was in charge, but after a few days he quietly yielded the -leadership to Franklin. - -Their first stop was Bethlehem, the chief Moravian settlement. Franklin -had expected them to be as opposed to military defense as the Quakers. -On the contrary, they were determined to avoid a tragedy such as that at -Gnadenhuetten, had built a stockade around their principal buildings, -brought in arms from New York, and were even arming their women with -small paving stones to throw out the windows should any marauding -Indians approach. - -“General Franklin,” the Moravians insisted on calling the head of the -Philadelphia expedition. - -They rode on to Easton next, to find a town in a state of panic and -disorder with no discipline at all. Refugees filled the houses. Food was -almost gone. There was drinking and rioting. Franklin organized a guard, -put sentries on the principal street, set up a patrol, had bushes -outside of town cleared away to avert their use as ambush, and enlisted -some two hundred men into the provincial militia. - -They visited other towns, arriving at the ruins of Gnadenhuetten in the -bitter cold of January. After the mournful chore of burying the dead, -the men set to building a stockade—felling pines, placing them firmly in -the ground side by side. Franklin, with his passion for collecting -facts, noted that it took six men six minutes to fell a pine of 14-inch -diameter, and he observed that his men were more cheerful on the days -they worked than when, because of rain or snow, they had to sit idle. - -Supplies were running low when provisions arrived from Philadelphia, -including roast beef, veal, and apples from Deborah. To reassure her, he -wrote that he was sleeping on a featherbed under warm blankets. The -truth was that, like his men, he slept on the floor of a hut with only -one thin blanket. The stockade, finished at last, was 450 feet in -circumference, 12 feet high, and had two mounted swivel guns but no -cannon. - -They were aware of the danger lurking in the dense forest. On a patrol, -Franklin found the remains of Indian watches. For their fires they dug -holes about three feet deep. The prints in weeds and grass showed they -had lain in a circle around the fire holes, letting their feet hang over -to keep warm. At a short distance, neither flame, sparks, nor smoke -could be seen. But the Indians, not then nor later, risked an attack. - -Franklin’s militia did no fighting but they turned defenseless regions -into defensive ones. They had built two more stockades at Fort Norris -and Fort Allen, when Franklin was called back to Philadelphia early in -February for a special Assembly meeting. To have a good bed again seemed -so strange, he hardly slept all night long. - -On his return he was appointed a militia colonel. Following his first -review of his regiment, the men accompanied him to his house and saluted -him with several rounds of fire, incidentally breaking some glass tubes -of his electrical apparatus. The following day when he set off for -Virginia on post office business, 20 officers and some 30 grenadiers -escorted him to the ferry, the grenadiers riding with drawn swords in a -ceremony reserved for persons of great distinction. When Thomas Penn in -England learned of this tribute, he was furious. No grenadiers had ever -drawn their swords for him. - -As for Governor Morris, he suavely suggested that Franklin and his -command should try to take Fort Duquesne, which Braddock had failed to -take, promising him a general’s commission. Franklin firmly declined. He -had no illusions about his military ability and likely suspected Morris -of wishing to be rid of him. (Fort Duquesne was eventually captured in -1758, in an expedition led by British Brigadier General Forbes; George -Washington hoisted the British flag over the fort’s ruins.) - -In August 1756, following a declaration of war on the Delaware, the new -governor, William Denny, offered large bounties for “the scalp of every -male Indian enemy above the age of twelve years,” and smaller bounties -for “female Indian prisoners and youths under eight.” Franklin, like the -majority of the Assembly members, was outraged at this barbarity, and -disgusted with the conduct of the proprietors and their representatives. -Early in 1757, a vote was passed to send Franklin to England, as -official agent of Pennsylvania, there to present to Parliament and the -King a petition of grievances against the Penns. - -Debby would not go with him. She was frightened to death of the sea. He -did take William, who was radiant at seeing England. By April they were -in New York, ready to catch their ship. Packets for England were in -charge of Lord Loudon, the new commander-in-chief, an amiable person -with all the time in the world to listen to complaints, indulge in long -conversations, and to write endless notes. Not until he had finished -this mysterious correspondence, would he permit the fleet to depart. For -more than two months, Franklin and his son waited, restless and -impatient and helpless. - -There was plenty of time to puzzle about the errors of the British. Why -they should send to the colonies an arrogant man like General Braddock, -a dawdler like Loudon, governors like the dishonest Sir William Keith, -or Morris and Denny, who were far more interested in protecting the rich -proprietors than in the welfare of the colonists. But then the reason -for Franklin’s voyage was to correct such mistakes. He had no doubt that -the King and the mighty Parliament would be glad to listen to him. - - - - - 7 - THE BATTLE WITH THE PENNS - - -During the voyage to England, Franklin wrote a preface for his 1758 -_Almanack_. In the form of a letter from “Poor Richard” to his -“Courteous Reader,” it told of a sermon on frugality and industry, which -Poor Richard had heard in the market place by “a plain clean old man -with white locks” called Father Abraham. He was most flattered to find -that Father Abraham was quoting him, Poor Richard, at every other -breath. - - As Poor Richard says: Many words won’t fill a bushel.... God helps - them that help themselves.... The sleeping fox catches no poultry.... - Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and - wise.... 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.... - - As Poor Richard says: Many a little makes a mickle.... Fools make - feasts, and wise men eat them.... Pride that dines on vanity, sups on - contempt.... ’Tis hard for an empty bag to stand upright.... If you - will not hear reason, she’ll surely rap your knuckles... - -All the nuggets of wise counsel which he had dropped in his _Almanack_ -in the twenty-five years of its existence, Franklin gathered for Father -Abraham’s speech. Omitted were the racy ballads, verses, broad humor and -jokes which had made the _Almanack_ a potpourri where every man could -find something to his taste. Only at the end was a touch of Franklin’s -sly wit. Following Father Abraham’s sermon, Poor Richard watched -disconsolately as the village folk dispersed to spend their hard-earned -money as foolishly as ever on the marketplace wares. The only one to -take the sermon to heart was Poor Richard himself who had come to buy -material for a new coat but left, “resolved to wear my old one a little -longer.” - -Father Abraham’s speech was later published under the title of “The Way -to Wealth.” It was reprinted in many editions and translated in many -languages, and it won the author almost as much fame as his discoveries -in electricity. - -Peter Collinson met Franklin and his son in London, where they arrived -on July 26, 1757, taking them to his home. No doubt he and Franklin -discussed electricity until very late, with William only half listening -and more or less bored. The next day, a printer named William Strahan, -with whom Franklin had corresponded some fourteen years but never met, -called on him. - -“I never saw a man who was, in every respect, so perfectly agreeable to -me,” Strahan wrote Deborah Franklin of this meeting, adding that William -was “one of the prettiest young gentlemen I ever knew from America.” - -Deborah likely scowled. It was just like that artful lad to ingratiate -himself so quickly. - -A few days later father and son rented four rooms from a widow, Mrs. -Margaret Stevenson, who lived with her young daughter Polly in a -substantial mansion on 7 Craven Street, Strand. This was to be -Franklin’s English home, which over the years became almost as dear to -him as his Philadelphia one. - -He had brought two servants with him. One of them, Peter, served him -faithfully, though the other, a slave, ran away shortly after their -arrival. Franklin’s post as Massachusetts agent required a bit of pomp. -He wore a wig in the latest fashion, silver shoe and knee buckles and -purchased linen for new shirts. Later he rented a coach. - -Barely was he settled when he was invited to visit Lord George -Grenville, president of the Privy Council and one of England’s most -important statesmen. This was Franklin’s first test in holding his own -with persons more steeped than he in political intrigue. - -Lord Grenville received him with great civility, questioned him at -length about American affairs, and then announced that the colonists had -some erroneous notions he felt duty bound to correct: - -“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. You must be made to understand that the King’s instruction -are _The Law of the Land_.” - -This was simply not true. The King’s instructions were laws in the -colonies only if they received the approval of the local Assembly. In -the same way, laws passed by a colonial Assembly had to be submitted to -the King before they became final. That was why Franklin was in England, -to get the King’s approval of the Assembly decision on the Penns. - -Sure as he was of his facts, he voiced his opinion in the manner he had -learned from Socrates: “It is my understanding that ...” - -“You are totally mistaken,” Lord Grenville stated patronizingly, when he -had finished. - -It was Franklin’s first experience with the contemptuous attitude which -certain of the British took in regard to the colonists. He would later -observe that “every man in England seems to jostle himself into the -throne with the King, and talks of _our subjects_ in the colonies.” - -Around the middle of August he called on the Penn family, at their -stately mansion in Spring Garden. It had seemed courteous to meet with -them personally before approaching higher authority. William Penn’s son -Thomas was there and probably Richard Penn and his son, John. They -received him with glacial politeness, listened haughtily as he told them -the Assembly’s grievances, and just as haughtily denied that the -grievances were in any way justified. - -Franklin pointed out that the Assembly was asking no more than what -William Penn had promised citizens under his 1701 Charter of Privileges. - -“My father granted privileges he had no right to grant, according to the -Royal Charter,” Thomas Penn announced. - -“Then all those who came to settle in the province, expecting to enjoy -the privileges contained in the grant were deceived, cheated and -betrayed?” With the greatest difficulty, Franklin kept his voice calm. - -Thomas Penn laughed insolently. “If the people were cheated, it was -their own fault. They should have gone to the trouble of reading the -Royal Charter.” - -His tone reminded Franklin of a horse trader of low character, jeering -at the purchaser he had victimized. “Poor people are not lawyers,” he -said steadily. “They trusted your father and did not think it necessary -to consult a lawyer.” - -Unabashed, Thomas Penn rose to dismiss him. “If you care to put your -complaints in writing, Mr. Franklin, we will then consider them.” - -Those arrogant Penns! How it would have grieved their noble father to -see into what selfish hands he had left his beloved Pennsylvania! -Franklin had yet to find out through personal experience that nobility -of character is not always inherited. - -Five days later he returned with the Assembly’s grievances in written -form. On the advice of their lawyer, a “proud and angry man,” Ferdinand -John Paris, the Penns sent Franklin’s paper to the Royal lawyers, the -Attorney-General Charles Pratt, and Solicitor-General Charles Yorke. -These gentlemen were out of town. There was nothing to do but wait. - -Franklin fell sick with a cold and fever that September and was -bedridden nearly eight weeks. Dr. Fothergill, the man who had written -the preface for his pamphlet on electricity, tended him regularly. Mrs. -Stevenson, his landlady, nursed him like a son. Even William was -unusually obliging, did his errands and helped him to prepare a letter -to the _Citizen_ to counteract slanders about Pennsylvania which -Franklin suspected emanated from the Penns. William was enrolling in law -school in London; he had bought himself elegant clothes that rivaled -those of any young English peer. - -As soon as he was well enough, Franklin went on a shopping spree -himself. For Debby, who still liked bright colors, he purchased a -crimson satin cloak and for Sally a black silk one, with a scarlet -feather and muff which William selected. There were other luxuries for -their home not found in America: English china, silver salt ladles, an -apple corer and a gadget “to make little turnips out of great ones,” a -carpet, tablecloths, napkins, silk blankets from France, and a “large -fine jug for beer,” which he had fallen in love with at first sight. - -“I thought it looked like a fat jolly dame,” he explained the gift to -Debby, “clean and tidy, with a neat blue and white calico gown on, -good-natured and lovely, and put me in mind of—somebody.” - -His most extravagant present followed later—a harpsichord for Sally -which cost the huge sum of forty-two guineas. - -If some Englishmen were snobs, there were plenty of others who were just -the opposite. Franklin’s fellow members of the august Royal Society -welcomed him warmly. He made many new scientific friends, among them the -stout and amiable John Pringle, an authority on military medicine and -sanitation, and John Canton, the first Englishman to draw lightning from -the sky. At Cambridge, in May 1758, he performed experiments in -evaporation with John Hadley, professor of chemistry. He made a trip to -Northampton, the ancestral home of the Franklins, and met some distant -relatives. When he found the Franklin graves in the cemetery so moss -covered that their inscriptions were effaced, he had his servant Peter -scour them clean. - -The Scottish University of St. Andrews gave him a degree as doctor of -law. Henceforth he had the right to call himself Dr. Franklin. Later he -visited Scotland where he was made an honorary burgess and guildbrother -at Edinburgh; met the economist Adam Smith; and the philosopher David -Hume, who said of him: “America has sent us many good things, gold, -silver, sugar, tobacco, indigo, etc., but you are the first philosopher, -and indeed the first great man of letters, for whom we are beholden to -her.” - -He stayed with the congenial Scottish judge Lord Henry Home Kames, to -whom he wrote in his note of thanks that the time spent in Scotland “was -six weeks of the _densest_ happiness I have met with in any part of my -life.” - -A bitter fellow American arrived in London, William Smith, provost of -the Pennsylvania Academy, one of those who had opposed him on the Penn -issue. The Pennsylvania Assembly had tried him on the charge of libel -and he had spent three months in jail. Now he was seeking redress from -the Crown, and blaming not only the Quakers for his arrest but Franklin, -who had not even been in Pennsylvania. Smith was saying that Franklin -was not really a scientist, that he had stolen his ideas from others. - -Franklin took the slander philosophically: “’Tis convenient to have at -least one enemy, who by his readiness to revile one on all occasions may -make one careful of one’s conduct. I shall keep him an enemy for that -purpose.” - -While the proprietors were stalling, Franklin set out to meet such -high-placed persons as might help his cause. He tried to see the Prime -Minister William Pitt, who was said to be sympathetic to the colonies, -but Pitt was too occupied with his enormous war in India to give him a -hearing. Eventually he met the two royal lawyers, Charles Yorke and -Charles Pratt, to whom the Penns had submitted the Assembly’s -grievances. To his surprise he found they had already given their -verdict, a negative one, which the Penns had forwarded directly to the -Assembly, bypassing Franklin. The Penns were claiming he had insulted -them. He had not addressed them as the “True and Absolute Proprietaries -of the Province of Pennsylvania.” - -Back in Pennsylvania, the Assembly had finally persuaded Governor Denny -to pass its act taxing the proprietary estate. Franklin brought the -matter before the British Committee for Plantation Affairs in August -1759, when he had been two years in England. The decision was a -compromise: unsurveyed lands of the proprietors should not be taxed but -their surveyed lands must be taxed at a rate no higher than other -similar lands. The Pennsylvania Assembly held Franklin solely -responsible for the victory, and congratulations flowed to him. - -He could have gone home now but he stayed on. There was a tremendous -propaganda job to be done and he was the only one capable. He wanted to -set the English straight on the role of the American colonies in the -British Empire. He wrote articles for the press. He expressed his ideas -at the Whig Club, in coffeehouses where philosophers and literary men -congregated, and to guests whom he invited to dine at Craven Street. His -refreshing candor and quiet wit brought him attention everywhere. - -At odd moments he tinkered with various inventions. For the Stevensons, -he devised an iron frame with a sliding plate to serve as a draught in -their fireplace, so it would give more heat and take less fuel. He made -a clock with only three wheels and one hand, which showed hours, -minutes, and seconds. Later others improved his model and sold it -commercially. - -He spent long hours constructing a musical instrument, based on the -principle of musical glasses. The “armonica” he named it, remarking that -it was “peculiarly adapted to Italian music, especially that of the soft -and plaintive kind.” Subsequently, an English musician, Marianne Davies, -toured the Continent giving armonica recitals; Marie Antoinette took -lessons from her. Mozart and Beethoven composed selections for the -armonica. Its vogue lasted some fifty years, and then, no one knows just -why, it lost its popularity. - -In August 1761, he took William on a trip to Belgium and Holland. In -Brussels, the Prince of Lorraine welcomed him and showed him his physics -laboratory. At Leyden, he met Musschenbroek, inventor of the Leyden jar. -They were back in time for the coronation of George III, whom Franklin -judged “a virtuous and generous young man.” - -In February 1762, Oxford University gave the honorary degree of doctor -of civil laws to “the illustrious Benjamin Franklin, Esquire, Agent of -the Province of Pennsylvania, Postmaster-General of North America, and -Fellow of the Royal Society.” Less ostentatiously, William was presented -a degree of master of arts. - -William had been basking in the sunlight of his father’s reputation, and -Franklin had more than a little reason to worry about him. Unlike his -father, the youth was proud and haughty and disdainful of those of -humble birth. - -One day Franklin told him a story. When he was a child of seven, -Franklin said, some friends on a holiday filled his pocket with coppers. -He went directly to a toy shop, and being charmed with the sound of a -whistle in the hands of another boy, he gave all his money for one like -it. He came home and went whistling all over the house, much pleased -with his purchase, until his brothers, sisters, and cousins told him he -had given four times as much as it was worth, laughing at him for his -folly. Put in mind of the good things he might have bought with the rest -of the money, he cried with vexation. “The reflection gave me more -chagrin than the whistle gave me pleasure.” - -“As I grew older,” he continued, “I have found a number of men who have -given too much for their whistle—popularity-seekers, misers, and men of -pleasure. Don’t give too much for the whistle, William. Why not become a -joiner or wheelwright, if the estate I leave you is not enough? The man -who lives by his labor is at least free.” - -Did little Benjamin really spend all his pennies for a whistle, or was -this a fable which Franklin invented to clothe a moral lesson? There is -no way of knowing for sure and it is not important. It should be -emphasized that the story, or fable, was not intended merely to show the -folly of wasting money. It had a far more subtle meaning. - -Much as Franklin had come to love England, his heart was heavy with -yearning for his family and his own country after his five year absence. -Since England and France were still at war, he had to wait for a safe -convoy. It was August 1762 when he set sail from Portsmouth. William did -not come with him. The Crown had appointed him to the high post of -governor of New Jersey. He would take a later ship, after his papers -were in order. - -“Don’t give too much for the whistle,” Franklin may have warned him once -more before he left. - - - - - 8 - THE WHITE CHRISTIAN SAVAGES - - -“Benjamin Franklin has lost all his Philadelphia friends.” - -That was the rumor which his “enemy,” William Smith, had been spreading. -It had reached Franklin’s ears but he had not worried about it nor did -he have reason to. As his ship sailed into port, in November 1762, the -docks were bright with waving flags and packed with cheering crowds. -Five hundred horsemen escorted him home. - -Waiting for him were Debby, his “plain country Joan,” stout, beaming, -and vociferous in her greeting, and his daughter Sally, pretty and -elegant in the London frocks he had sent her. From morning to night in -the next days, his Philadelphia friends, those whom Smith said he did -not have, were filling his house, boisterous and hearty, slapping him on -the back, congratulating him on the job he had done, in every way -possible showing him their warm and lasting affection. - -Did he find their manners a bit rough, their horizon of knowledge -limited after his cultured and learned English friends? Nostalgically he -wrote to Polly Stevenson: “Why should that little island (England) enjoy -in almost every neighbourhood more sensible, virtuous, and elegant minds -than we can collect in ranging a hundred leagues of our vast forests?” - -Not that America would always remain behind England in the arts: -“Already some of our young geniuses begin to lisp attempts at painting -poetry and music.” And with his letter he proudly included some American -verse he thought might find favor in England. - -The supporters of the proprietors were still criticizing him, claiming -now that Benjamin Franklin had lived extravagantly and wasted public -money in England. They were disappointed rather than gratified when he -submitted to the Assembly a bill for his five years’ expenses—for just -714 pounds, ten shillings, seven pence. The Assembly, too embarrassed to -accept such a modest estimate, promptly voted him 3,000 pounds. - -In February, William arrived to take up his office as New Jersey’s royal -governor, bringing with him a beautiful and dignified new bride, -Elizabeth, who had been born in the West Indies. Franklin toured New -Jersey with them, along with an escort of cavalry and gentlemen on -sleighs. His heart filled with pride as he saw the respect and affection -with which they were welcomed by rich and poor alike, and his fears -about William were for the moment put aside. - -He did some 1,600 miles traveling of his own from the Spring to the fall -of 1763, the first year of his return, taking up where he had left off -in expanding and improving the colonial postal services. Sally went with -him on one trip up to New England, when they stayed with the former -Catherine Ray, now Mrs. William Greene, her husband a future governor of -Rhode Island. When he dislocated his shoulder in a fall from his horse, -it was Catherine who nursed him. The friendships of Benjamin -Franklin—how much could be said of them! He guarded them all, men and -women alike, more preciously than jewels, nourished them with letters -during separations, and with personal warmth during reunions. - -In February 1763, the Treaty of Paris brought the French and Indian Wars -to a formal close in England’s favor, but did not solve the tensions -between colonists and Indians which the struggle had fomented. - -Though the treaty granted the Indians the lands from the Allegheny -Mountains to the Mississippi, the Indians had learned to be suspicious -of the white man’s treaties and rightly feared that future settlers -would drive them back further and further. Out of desperation, they -attacked English garrisons from Detroit to Fort Pitt. - -The English reciprocated ruthlessly. One British general suggested that -blankets inoculated with smallpox be presented to them “to extirpate -this execrable race.” As contagious as any disease was the racial hatred -that spread along the frontiers. In Lancaster County, certain -Scotch-Irish settlers of Paxton and Donegal townships met together and -vowed vengeance on the “redskins.” “The only good Indian is a dead -Indian,” they said. If the warring Indians vanished into the forests -after each assault, why then there were plenty of others—such as those -living under the protection of the good Moravians. - -In December, the Paxton Boys, as they called themselves, attacked a tiny -hamlet of peaceful Conestoga Indians. Six were killed outright. Fourteen -others, old people, women and children, who had been out selling -baskets, brooms and bowls to their white neighbors, were taken captive -and lodged at the Lancaster workhouse. Two days after Christmas, the -rioters broke into the workhouse, killing all of them with hatchets. -Streams of other peaceful Indians poured into Philadelphia for -protection. - -William Penn’s grandson, John Penn, was now Pennsylvania’s governor. He -ordered the arrest of the murderers but did nothing to enforce his -order. Made bold by this seeming lack of concern, the Paxton Boys, their -ranks swollen by a lawless mob, voted to go to Philadelphia and force -the Assembly to turn over the Indian refugees to their untender mercies. - -Franklin’s war activities had shown he condemned atrocities against the -frontiersmen, but he was outraged that Indians who had kept faith with -the white men should have been betrayed. By mid-January he had both -written and printed a pamphlet, “Narrative of the Late Massacres in -Lancaster County.” - -The first part retold the story of Indian relations in Pennsylvania. How -members of the Six Nations had first settled in Conestoga, how its -messengers had welcomed the English with presents of venison, corn and -skins, how the tribe had entered into a treaty of friendship with -William Penn, to last “as long as the sun should shine or the waters run -in the rivers.” - -It was an “enormous wickedness,” he continued, to assassinate these -Conestoga Indians for the sins of the “rum-debauched, trader-corrupted -vagabonds and thieves on the Susquehanna and Ohio.” It was as illogical -as if the Dutch should seek revenge on the English for injuries done by -the French, merely because both English and French were white. - -To what good, he asked, had Old Shehaes, so ancient he had been present -at Penn’s Treaty in 1701, been cut to pieces in his bed? What was to be -gained by shooting or killing with a hatchet little boys and girls—and a -one-year-old baby? “This is done by no civilized nation in Europe. Do we -come to America to learn and practise the manners of barbarians?” The -Conestoga Indians would have been safe among the ancient heathen, the -Turks, the Saracens, the Moors, the Spanish, the Negroes—anywhere in the -world “except in the neighborhood of the Christian white savages.” - -Christian white savages! That was a phrase to make people wince. Those -who shared the prejudices of the Paxton Boys were highly indignant. But -the Quakers agreed with him, and the pamphlet convinced a surprising -number of others that it was their duty to defend their city and protect -the Indians who had sought refuge with them. - -Panic spread as the Paxton rioters, armed and in an ugly mood, -approached Philadelphia. In the emergency Governor John Penn turned to -Franklin to reorganize his militia. Almost overnight a thousand citizens -rallied to arms, among them Junto members and firemen. On February 8, -word came that the mob was at the city limits. The governor, with his -councilors, rushed to Franklin at midnight, seeking advice. His house -became their temporary headquarters. - -The ford over the Schuylkill River was guarded. The Paxton group -bypassed it, turned north, crossed the river at another ford, and came -noisily into Germantown some ten miles from Philadelphia. - -“You go talk to them, Franklin,” pleaded the frightened governor. - -Benjamin rode off to Germantown with only three of his men, and spoke -with the mob’s leaders so reasonably and sternly they agreed to turn -back. Three days later they had all gone home and quiet was restored to -the city. - -“For about 48 hours, I was a very great man,” he wrote Lord Kames. To -Dr. Fothergill in London, he tersely described his activities: “Your old -friend was a common soldier, a councillor, a kind of dictator, an -ambassador to a country mob, and, on his returning home, nobody again.” - -The help he had given in a delicate situation did not win him the -governor’s approval. To his Uncle Thomas Penn he wrote on May 5 that -there would never be “any prospect of ease and happiness while that -villain has the liberty of spreading about the poison of that inveterate -malice and ill nature which is deeply implanted in his own black heart.” - -Instead of bringing the Paxton criminals to justice, John Penn launched -a bitter attack on the Pennsylvania Assembly, whom he called “arrogant -usurpers.” The Assembly membership promptly voted as president their -most controversial member, Benjamin Franklin. - -The annual elections for Assembly seats were held in October 1764. Two -parties sprang up: Old Ticket, which supported Franklin and Joseph -Galloway, another liberal, as candidates; New Ticket, the conservatives, -the supporters of the Penns, and the Indian haters in whose hearts still -rankled Franklin’s phrase, “white Christian savages.” The campaign was -stormy and there was mud slinging on both sides. In Philadelphia, Old -Ticket lost by 25 votes out of 4,000. Galloway was upset. Franklin -merely shrugged and went home to bed. - -Only in Philadelphia had the New Ticket won. When the returns came in -from the rest of the province, Old Ticket still had a majority in the -Assembly. They convened on October 26, and voted to send the King a -petition begging him to take back the province from the Penns, making it -a royal province. Franklin prepared the petition and was selected to -take it in person to England. John Penn was blind with fury but -helpless. - -Franklin was engaged in having a new house built on Market Street -between Third and Fourth. It was of brick, thirty-four feet square, with -three rooms to each floor, and it had a pleasant garden. The kitchen was -in the cellar with a special arrangement of pipes “to carry off steam -and smell and smoke.” It would naturally be protected by a lightning rod -and would be heated by the now celebrated Franklin stoves. - -He did not like to leave his house unfinished and he dreaded another -separation from Debby, who was still terrified at the thought of an -Atlantic crossing. But the long political squabble had bored and wearied -him, and he looked forward to seeing England and his English friends -again. - -“I will be gone only a few months,” he assured his wife and his pretty -daughter, when he left them in November 1764. He could not then guess -that the few months would stretch to more than ten years. - - - - - 9 - THE STAMP ACT - - -His ship, the _King of Prussia_, reached Portsmouth in just thirty days. -By December 11, 1764, he was ensconced once more at 7 Craven Street, in -the tender care of Polly and Mrs. Stevenson, exuberant to have their -kind American friend with them once more. How pleasant to be spoiled by -them, to resume his dinners at the Royal Society, his meetings with his -scientific colleagues, to see again his many English acquaintances! - -In respect to his mission, his return was less satisfactory. The Penn -family was as influential as ever. For nearly two years, their scheming -prevented him from getting the Assembly petition so much as a hearing by -the King’s Privy Council. When at last, in November 1766, the hearing -was granted, the answer was short and decisive: the King had no power to -interfere with the rights of the proprietors of a province. The petition -was denied. - -Franklin tried in vain to have the decision reversed. The proprietors -officially retained their claims on Pennsylvania for ten years more, -until the events of 1776 changed the whole structure of the American -provinces. - -An even more urgent crisis retained him in London. Lord George -Grenville, the same who had so blatantly stated that the King’s word was -law in the colonies, was now chief adviser to George III. His situation -was precarious and he knew that his cabinet was doomed if he failed to -raise some money. And where would one find money if not by taxing the -American colonies? Since the Americans had no representation in -Parliament, no votes would be lost even should the colonists grumble at -being taxed. - -So Grenville reasoned, and it was thus that he conceived foisting the -Stamp Act on the colonies. The Act was to tax some fifty-five articles, -including all legal papers, advertisements, and marriage licenses. A -liquor license required a tax of four pounds; a pack of cards, one -shilling; a pair of dice, ten shillings. A newspaper on a half-sheet of -paper must carry a stamp worth one half-penny. A civil appointment worth -more than twenty pounds a year took a four-pound tax. A college degree -cost two pounds in taxes. - -Grenville called the colonial agents together and discussed his -brainstorm with them. The money raised, he assured them, would be used -in America—for public works and for the maintenance of British troops to -protect them. If they had any better idea for levying taxes, they should -tell him. The agents, Franklin among them, could only point out that no -taxes would be popular; that if Parliament needed money, the proper -procedure was to ask the Assemblies to raise what they could. - -Their objections were ignored. Politically, America was then in -disfavor. The English held that the seven-year struggle with France, -with its huge expenditure in lives and money, had saved the thirteen -colonies from French tyranny. They should be grateful. They should want -to help reduce the national debt. Instead they were always clamoring for -something or other. - -In quick succession the Stamp Act passed the House of Lords and the -House of Commons, and was approved by the King on March 22, 1765, -scheduled to go into effect on November 1. Franklin felt that a bad -mistake had been made, but that, since the Stamp Act was now a law, it -should be obeyed until a way was found to get it repealed. To an -American friend he wrote that he opposed it “sincerely and heartily.” He -added philosophically, “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.” - -Grenville summoned Franklin to a conference. Was it not a good idea to -appoint Americans as stamp officers to distribute the stamps, so that -the colonists could deal with their own? Did Franklin have anyone to -suggest? Franklin proposed two—John Hughes of Pennsylvania, who needed a -job, and Jared Ingersoll, agent for Connecticut. Somehow it did not -occur to him that he was throwing himself open to criticism at home. - -An attack of gout kept him in bed for some time after the passage of the -Act. He amused himself with one of his hoaxes, a letter to the -newspapers mocking certain alleged economists who claimed that the -colonies could never be self-supporting. - -In America, he wrote, the “very tails of the American sheep are so laden -with wool, that each has a little car or wagon on four little wheels, to -support and keep it from trailing on the ground.” Wool was so cheap and -plentiful that colonists spread it on the floors of the horses’ stalls -instead of straw. - -He next described a mythical “cod and whale fishery” on the Great Lakes. -Did people imagine that cod and whale lived only in salt water? They -should know how cod fled from whales into any safe water, salt or fresh, -and how the whales pursued them: “The grand leap of the whale in the -chase up the falls of Niagara is esteemed, by all who have seen it, as -one of the finest spectacles in nature.” - -Soon all London was chuckling about the whale that leaped up the -Niagara. - -In the meantime a tempest was erupting in America. The Stamp Act which -Franklin had taken so calmly had evoked a clamor throughout the -colonies, loudest in New England and Virginia. At the House of Burgesses -in lovely Williamsburg, an eloquent young Virginian named Patrick Henry -rose to declare the act “illegal, unconstitutional, and unjust,” and to -spout a set of resolutions, defining the rights of colonists as British -subjects, as had never been done so effectively. The Virginia Resolves -were printed in all the colonial newspapers, setting aflame a smoldering -indignation. A new organization, the Sons of Liberty, held parades and -protest meetings. - -Franklin was plainly shocked. “The rashness of the Assembly in Virginia -is amazing,” he wrote John Hughes, his appointee as stamp officer. “A -firm loyalty to the Crown ... will always be the wisest course.” The -stupid Lord Grenville had been succeeded in July by the Marquis of -Rockingham. Franklin was hopeful he could be persuaded of the folly and -injustice of the tax. All that was needed was patience. - -But the word patience had no appeal in America. When the names of the -stamp officers were published in August, riots broke out from New -Hampshire to South Carolina. Mobs gathered in front of the house of John -Hughes, burning him in effigy, threatening him with hanging and -drowning, until he was forced to resign. Similar demonstrations forced -resignations from Jared Ingersoll and other stamp officers. By the time -the stamps arrived, there were almost no officers to distribute them. As -a further measure, the colonists began to boycott British goods, to the -sorrow of the British merchants who henceforth became the most ardent -advocates of repeal. - -The Penn supporters took advantage of the fray to point out that it was -Lord Grenville who was responsible for the hated act—not the -proprietors. As for Benjamin Franklin, everyone in England knew he was -on excellent terms with Grenville. In the stormy atmosphere, -exaggeration mounted to falsehood. Soon people were saying that Franklin -had framed the act, helped to get it passed, and accepted pay for -recommending the stamp officers. - -Debby became marked as the wife of the man who had betrayed his trust, -and old friends slighted her on the street. There were rumblings about -burning their handsome new home. Governor William Franklin worriedly -came to try to persuade her and Sally to take refuge with him in New -Jersey. She let Sally go but refused to budge herself. - -Cool-headedly and courageously, she collected guns and ammunition and -enough provisions to see her through a siege. Her brother came to stay -with her as did one of Franklin’s nephews. The house was turned into an -arsenal. But no attacks were made. In her heart Debby was sure there -would be none. Why should anyone want to hurt her or Pappy? - -The object of this fury was in that very period working tirelessly to -achieve repeal by peaceful means. “I was extremely busy,” he wrote Lord -Kames, “attending members of both Houses, informing, explaining, -consulting, disputing, in a continual hurry from morning to night.” - -He conferred with leading statesmen, such as Lord Dartmouth, so much -respected in America that a college was named for him. He dined with the -Minister Lord Rockingham, and found an ally in Rockingham’s private -secretary, a gifted Irishman named Edmund Burke. He sought out the -manufacturers and merchants who were suffering from the American -boycott, and enlisted their support. He wrote letters to newspapers to -convince England’s common people that the Stamp Act was a major obstacle -to Anglo-American friendship. - -He used his charm, his wit, his power of persuasion, his writing -talents, his high reputation as a scientist, all as weapons to win -friends for the American cause. The other colonial agents worked with -him, but none could equal his activities. The news from America saddened -him and he knew he had to fight, not only to save his own prestige, but -to preserve what then seemed to him terribly important—the harmony -between the colonists and the Crown. - -Finally, in February 1766, there was a breakthrough in the wall of -seeming indifference. The House of Commons summoned him to answer -questions of the probable effects of the Stamp Act in America. He was -dead with fatigue and troubled with gout, but inwardly he was jubilant. -He had coached his friends in Parliament in advance on what to ask, and -guessed without difficulty the line of inquiry of the opposition. - -“What is your name and place of abode?” the Speaker asked first. - -“Franklin of Philadelphia,” he said, as if there were no need to be more -explicit. - -For three hours the questions rained down on him. He answered fully, -drawing from his vast knowledge of American affairs. As he spoke in his -dry quiet voice, peering at the House members over his spectacles, he -gave the impression of a schoolmaster instructing a group of students. - -“Do the Americans pay any considerable taxes among themselves?” asked -James Hewitt, Member for Coventry, a town that manufactured the worsteds -and ribbons which the colonists had stopped buying. - -They paid many and heavy taxes, Franklin said. He enumerated them -precisely, stressing the debt contracted in the recent war, stressing -too that people of the frontier counties were so impoverished by enemy -raids they could contribute nothing. - -“From the thinness of the back settlements, would not the Stamp Act be -extremely inconvenient to the inhabitants?” This was certainly a -question he had formulated himself. - -It definitely would, Franklin said. “Many of the inhabitants could not -get stamps when they had occasion for them without taking long journeys -and spending perhaps three or four pounds that the Crown might get -sixpence.” - -There were many more questions and then the Stamp Act’s creator, Lord -Grenville, asked sharply, “Do you think it right that America should be -protected by this country and pay no part of the expense?” - -“That is not the case,” Franklin told them. “The colonies raised, -clothed, and paid, during the last war, near 25,000 men and spent many -millions.” Though they were supposed to be reimbursed by Parliament, in -actual fact they received only a small part of their expenses. -“Pennsylvania, in particular, disbursed about 500,000 pounds and the -reimbursements in the whole did not exceed 60,000 pounds.” - -He had at his fingertips equally factual data on every subject that -arose. - -Someone asked, “Do you not think the people of America would submit to -pay the stamp duty if it was moderated?” - -“No, never,” Franklin stated, “unless compelled by force of arms.” - -Another asked, “What was the temper of America toward Great Britain -before the year 1763?” - -He replied, “The best in the world. They submitted willingly to the -government of the Crown, and paid, in all their courts, obedience to the -acts of Parliament.... They had not only a respect but an affection for -Great Britain.” - -“And what is their temper now?” he was asked. - -“Oh, very much altered,” he assured them. - -“What used to be the pride of the Americans?” - -“To indulge in the fashions and manufactures of Great Britain.” - -“What is now their pride?” - -“To wear their old clothes over again till they can make new ones,” he -said calmly. - -The session ended with this verbal blow leaving them gasping. - -He had never considered himself a public speaker, and never before or -after spoken so long before such a large audience, but he had won his -point. In less than a month, on March 8, the Stamp Act repeal had passed -both houses of Parliament and received the reluctant assent of the King. -Franklin’s “Examination” was published in London, and later that year in -Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Williamsburg, and elsewhere in the -colonies. It was translated into French and German. - -It was a wonderful victory. There was rejoicing throughout America. -Philadelphia coffeehouses made gifts to the crew of the ship that -brought the news. Taverns served punch and beer on the house. Benjamin -Franklin was once more a hero. Even the Penn supporters had to admit he -had done a fine job. At the Philadelphia State House, 300 guests of the -governor and the mayor drank a toast to him. - -Franklin’s own celebration was to go shopping. With Mrs. Stevenson to -guide him, he bought more presents for his wife and Sally—fourteen yards -of Pompadour satin for a new gown, a silk negligee, a petticoat of -“brocaded lutestring,” a Turkish carpet, crimson mohair for curtains, -three damask tablecloths, and a box of “three fine cheeses.” - -“Perhaps a bit of them may be left when I come home,” he wrote hopefully -to Debby. - -He had asked the Pennsylvania Assembly to let him come home but instead -they appointed him agent for another year. - - - - - 10 - FRIENDSHIPS IN ENGLAND - - -Some time early in 1766, a young man named Joseph Priestley, a -dissenting minister and a teacher of classical languages in Warrington, -Lancashire, came to see Franklin to ask his help for a history of -electricity he was writing. Franklin gladly gave him assistance and told -him of his kite experiment in more detail than he had done to anyone -before. - -Impressed with Priestley’s scientific talents, he recommended him to -membership in the Royal Society. Priestley more than fulfilled his -expectations. A few years later he would discover oxygen—calling it by -the cumbersome name of “dephlogistated air.” He also became a lifelong -friend of the American colonies. - -Inevitably, the most brilliant scientists in England and the continent -sought Franklin out and, except for a few jealous ones, were added to -the circle of his friendships. Among the most intimate of these was John -Pringle, whom he had met on his last English trip and who was now Sir -John, personal Physician to England’s Queen. Samuel Johnson’s -biographer, Boswell, once called on Pringle and found him and Franklin -playing chess. - -Boswell wrote: “Sir John, though a most worthy man, has a peculiar sour -manner. Franklin again is all jollity and pleasantry. I said to myself: -Here is a prime contrast: acid and alkali.” - -With Pringle, Franklin took a trip to the continent in June 1766. They -stayed first in Pyrmont, in what is now West Germany, a fashionable -mineral springs resort. From there they visited Göttingen, where the -Royal Society of Sciences elected both to membership. They met Rudolf -Erich Raspe, narrator of the famous tall tales of the adventures of -Baron Münchausen. In their turn, Pringle and Franklin entertained their -new friends with stories about the giant Patagonians of South America, -which neither of them had of course ever seen. When Franklin later read -the newspaper accounts of their voyage, he noted with amusement that the -Patagonians had grown even taller in the hands of the press. - -A letter was waiting for him in London from Debby, saying that Sally -wanted his consent to marry a young man named Richard Bache. Franklin -was too far away to judge the merits of her suitor: “I can only say that -if he proves a good husband to her, and a good son to me, he shall find -me as good a father as I can be,” he wrote. The marriage took place in -October 1767. The ships in the harbor in Philadelphia ran up their flags -to celebrate the wedding of the daughter of their most famous citizen. - -The ministry of Lord Rockingham, in which Franklin had such confidence, -toppled while he was in Germany. The King and William Pitt, now Lord -Chatham, set up a coalition cabinet. Pitt, still a good friend of the -American colonies, soon fell violently ill, during which time the reins -of the government were seized by Charles Townshend, chancellor of the -exchequer. - -Townshend considered the whole colonial uproar over taxes “perfect -nonsense.” Since the Americans had balked at the _internal_ Stamp Tax, -he resolved to let them pay _external_ taxes, in the form of import -duties on glass, lead, paper, paints—and tea. - -By the Townshend Acts, duties were to be collected by English revenue -officers. The acts violated the time-honored right of trial by jury; -those accused of ignoring the revenue laws were to be tried in the -admiralty courts without a jury. As an added insult, the revenue -collected was to be used for the salaries of royal governors and judges -who previously had been paid by the Assemblies and thus subject to some -colonial control. - -Franklin foresaw grave danger ahead. The Americans would not accept -these harsh measures. “Every act of oppression will sour their tempers,” -he wrote Lord Kames, “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.” -He felt that the colonists’ affection for Britain was such that “if -cultivated prudently” they might be easily governed “without force or -any considerable expense.” But he did not see “a sufficient quantity of -the wisdom that is necessary to produce such a conduct.” - -The lack of “a sufficient quantity of the wisdom” on the part of -Parliament and the ministry was almost daily becoming more obvious to -him. Still he continued his course of education and propaganda and -persuasion, and of meeting with men in the government whom he hoped to -influence. Many listened to him. The young and wealthy Earl of -Shelburne, Secretary of State for the Colonies, became his close friend. -In recognition of his usefulness to his country, in 1768 he was chosen -agent for Georgia; in 1769, for New Jersey; and in 1770, for -Massachusetts. - -Nearly every year he took a trip from London for his health and to -refresh his mind. In the fall of 1767, he made his first visit to -France, again in the company of his “steady, good friend,” Sir John -Pringle. As a loyal subject of an England frequently at war with France, -he was prejudiced in advance against “that intriguing nation,” as he -called it. Even this first short visit led him to reverse his opinion. - -“It seems to be a point settled here universally that strangers are to -be treated with respect,” he wrote Polly Stevenson. “Why don’t we -practise this urbanity to Frenchmen? Why should they be allowed to outdo -us in anything?” Already he was adopting French fashions. “I had not -been here six days before my tailor and peruquier [wig maker] had -transformed me into a Frenchman. Only think what a figure I make in a -little bag-wig and naked ears! They told me I was become twenty years -younger, and looked very _galant_.” - -In French scientific circles, his name was legendary. Scientists bragged -that they were _Franklinistes_, a word they had coined. Thomas -d’Alibard, the first to draw electricity from the skies, entertained him -royally. At Versailles, he and Sir John were presented to Louis XV, -whose praise of his electrical experiments Franklin could hardly have -forgotten, and whom he found “a handsome man, has a very lively look, -and appears younger than he is.” - -The King “talked a good deal to Sir John,” he wrote Polly, “asking many -questions about our royal family; and did me too the honour of taking -some notice of me. That’s saying enough, for I would not have you think -me so much pleased with this king and queen as to have a whit less -regard than I used to have for ours.” “Our king” to him was still George -III. - -He thought Versailles badly kept up in spite of its splendor but was -impressed with the way drinking water was kept pure by filtering it -through cisterns filled with sand. - -It seemed as though every time he turned his back to London there were -changes in the ministry. Townshend, who had done more than any man -before him to turn the Americans into revolutionists, died in September -1767. He was succeeded by the Tory, Lord North, a pompous thick-lipped -personage, who had neither the will nor the desire to improve colonial -relations. William Pitt’s health was still poor. He collapsed in 1768 in -the House of Lords, in the midst of a fiery attack on his government’s -American policies. In the same year, the pleasant Lord Shelburne was -succeeded by the Earl of Hillsborough, a master of hypocrisy in -Franklin’s estimation, as Secretary of State for the Colonies. - -In America, the Massachusetts Assembly sent a letter to other colony -assemblies, proposing united opposition to the Townshend Acts. -Hillsborough demanded that they rescind their action or dissolve. The -Assembly refused, and was backed by the other colonies. In October 1768, -the British sent eight ships of war to try to compel Boston to pay the -import taxes. Other ships followed. By one estimate the extra military -expenses that year were five thousand times the amount which the -Townshend Acts produced in revenue. Franklin had judged their stupidity -rightly. - -In the midst of the American protests against these acts, he was -entertained by the Lord Chancellor Lord Bathurst and Lady Bathurst. He -brought them a gift of American nuts and apples. With an irony that his -lordship could not have missed, he prayed them to accept his present “as -a tribute from the country, small indeed but voluntary.” The nuts and -apples had come from Debby, who also sent him such American products as -corn meal, buckwheat flour, cranberries and dried peaches. - -That year young Christian VII of Denmark visited England, and insisted -that Franklin dine with him at St. James. He would not have been human -had he not recalled the proverb of Solomon which his father had so -frequently quoted in his childhood. Now he had not only stood before one -king, Louis XV, he had sat down with a second. There would be others. - -The English tried for two more years to make the colonists pay duties -they did not want to pay. At last, on March 5, 1770, Parliament voted -unanimously to repeal all of them but the tax on tea. Franklin commented -dryly that repealing only part of the duties was as bad surgery as to -leave splinters in a wound “which must prevent its healing.” In Boston -on that same day a squad of British soldiers fired into a crowd which -had been pelting them with snowballs—killing five and wounding six. The -“Boston Massacre” became a _cause célèbre_. Bloodshed had been added to -the other colony grievances. - -The next summer Franklin visited Ireland. In Dublin, he attended two -sessions of the Irish Parliament. The Speaker introduced him as “an -American gentleman of distinguished character and merit,” and he was -given a place of honor. He noted that the Irish Parliamentarians were -more cordial than their English counterparts, but was too astute not to -realize they did not really represent their own people. Ireland, like -America, had suffered under British oppressive measures, but more -intensely and longer. The appalling misery of the Irish people was a -moral lesson to him. He foresaw that if the colonists did not continue -to insist on their rights, they would suffer the same wretched fate. - -Sally’s husband, Richard Bache, came to England that fall to meet his -famous father-in-law. Bache had set his heart on getting a political -appointment and had brought a thousand pounds in case he would have to -pay for it. Even members of the House of Commons bought their posts, a -practice which was responsible for much of the corruption and -inefficiency of the government. Franklin advised his son-in-law to stay -clear of politics. - -“Invest your money in merchandise. Start a store in Philadelphia. You -will be independent and less subject to the caprices of superiors.” - -Bache followed this advice and within a few years was one of -Pennsylvania’s most respected merchants. - -That year Lord Hillsborough, with whom Franklin’s relations had been -only outwardly civil, was succeeded by Lord Dartmouth, whom he liked. -Again his hopes were raised for a cessation of hostilities. In truth, -the ministry and Parliament had never treated him more cordially. - -“As to my situation here,” he wrote his son on August 19, 1772, “nothing -can be more agreeable ... a general respect paid me by the learned, a -number of friends and acquaintances among them with whom I have a -pleasing intercourse ... my company so much desired that I seldom dine -at home in winter and could spend the whole summer in the country houses -of inviting friends if I chose it.... The king too has lately been heard -to speak of me with great regard.” In a postscript he mentioned that the -French Royal Academy had chosen him a foreign member, of which there -were only eight. - -His Craven Street family was now enlarged to include his grandson -William Temple Franklin, and a distant English cousin named Sally -Franklin who was, like his daughter, an eager young girl “nimble-footed -and willing to run errands and wait upon me.” Mrs. Stevenson continued -to pamper him and nurse him during his spells of gout. Polly, for whom -he always had great affection, was married to a young doctor, William -Hewson. The young couple had been living with their mother since 1770. - -There were several weeks when Mrs. Stevenson was away, leaving Polly in -charge. To amuse them, Franklin composed a newspaper, the _Craven Street -Gazette_, reporting the daily household happenings as though they were -world events. In this sheet, Mrs. Stevenson was “Queen Margaret,” Sally -was “first maid of honor,” Polly and her husband were “Lord and Lady -Hewson,” while he referred to himself as the “Great Person”—“so called -from his enormous size.” - -When Debby wrote him of the cleverness of his grandson Benjamin Franklin -Bache, born in August 1769, Franklin responded with anecdotes about -Polly’s first boy, whose godfather he was. - -Wherever he was, a rich family life was as essential to his happiness as -food. Among his close friends was Jonathan Shipley, bishop of St. Asaph, -at Twyford. “I now breathe with reluctance the smoke of London, when I -think of the sweet air of Twyford,” he wrote after a visit there in June -1771. - -The bishop had five daughters and a son, and Franklin more or less -adopted them all. To the Shipley girls he presented a gray squirrel -which Debby had sent. They were thrilled with Skugg, as they named him. -One day the squirrel escaped from his cage and was killed by a dog. The -children buried him in their garden and Franklin composed his epitaph: - - Here Skugg - Lies snug - As a bug - In a rug. - -At the Shipleys he wrote the first part of his famous _Autobiography_ in -the form of a letter to William. - -Another of his intimates was Lord Le Despencer, former chancellor of the -exchequer, who in his youth was reputedly the “wickedest man in -England.” Franklin found him a delightful companion and often stayed at -his country place at Wycombe. “I am in this house,” he wrote William, -“as much at my ease as if it was my own; and the gardens are a paradise. -But a pleasanter thing is the kind countenance, the facetious and very -intelligent conversation of mine host.” With Lord Le Despencer, the -alleged “rake,” he wrote an _Abridgement of the Book of Common Prayer_, -published in 1773. - -He was a frequent guest of Lord Shelburne, whose vast wooded estate was -also at Wycombe. One windy day he gravely told the other visitors that -he could quiet the waves on a small stream on the grounds. Ignoring -their skeptical looks, he walked upstream, made some mysterious passes -over the water, and waved his cane three times in the air. As he had -prophesied, the waves quieted down and the stream became smooth as a -mirror. His companions could not conceal their astonishment. - -Later he satisfied their curiosity. There was oil in the hollow joint of -his cane. A few drops of it spread in a thin film over the water and -caused the seeming miracle. - -Back of this trick was a great deal of serious study on the effects of -pouring oil on troubled waters. In his youth he had read in Pliny how -sailors of ancient Greece had smoothed a choppy sea in this manner. On -one of his ocean crossings an old sea captain told him that Bermuda -fishermen poured oil on rough waters so they could see the fish strike. -Subsequently, he had made his own experiments, finding that one teaspoon -of oil would calm a pond several yards across. - -If such a minute bit of oil would still a pond, would not several -barrels of oil level out the surf, making it possible for boats to land -with less danger? He tried out this theory the next year at Portsmouth, -England. With a local sea captain he took off on a barge one windy day, -sprinkling oil on the waves from a large stone bottle. The experiment -was only partially successful. Oil did not diminish the height or force -of the surf on the shore, but he had the satisfaction of seeing that -where the oil had spread, the surface of the water was not wrinkled by -smaller waves or whitecaps. - -His scientific and cultural interests were as varied as life itself. He -was in turn occupied with the nature of mastodon tusks and teeth which a -friend sent to London, with the transit of Venus, the causes of lead -poisoning, population increase, geology, salt mines, Scottish tunes, -whirlwinds and water-spouts, and the science of phonetics—the need of -reforms to reduce the “disorderly confusion in English spelling”—and the -curious fact that flies apparently drowned in a bottle of Madeira wine -might sometimes be brought back to life. - -His observations on all these matters were published in _Letters on -Philosophical Subjects_, and added to the fourth edition of “Experiments -and Observations on Electricity.” Barbeu Dubourg, a Parisian printer, -issued a French translation in two handsome volumes, which included “The -Way to Wealth,” under the French title, “_Le Moyen de s’Enricher_.” - -Philadelphia, wrote Dubourg in his preface, was founded in the midst of -the savages of America by William Penn, a man wiser than the Spartan -hero Lycurgus. In less than a century the city had gone far beyond the -ancient world in the practice of the purest virtues and the most useful -arts. Benjamin Franklin, scientist, statesman, and sage, had now brought -this heroic age to troubled Europe. - -The legend of Benjamin Franklin, which would mount to greater heights in -France than anywhere else in the world, was already in the making. - - - - - 11 - THE TERRIBLE HUTCHINSON LETTERS - - -At sixty-seven, Franklin had an expression at once benign, kindly, and -humorous. His years in England had subtly altered his appearance and his -manner. He dressed with elegance in a smooth wig and fashionable -ruffles, and he was equally at ease with eleven-year-old Kitty Shipley -or the King’s ministers. During the London season, he set out each -afternoon in his coach, often with Temple, his lively grandson, to leave -his card or pay calls on members of Parliament or other influential -persons whom he wished to win over to the American cause. - -In the year 1773, he was most concerned with the threat of the British -troops still stationed in Boston three years after the “Boston -Massacre.” Wherever he thought it might help, he argued the folly of -treating Bostonians like troublesome children. “I am in perpetual -anxiety lest the mad measure of mixing soldiers among a people whose -minds are in such a state of irritation, may be attended with some -sudden mischief,” he wrote his Boston correspondent, Thomas Cushing. - -One day, during a conversation on this subject, a British “gentleman of -character and distinction” told him that he was wrong to blame the -English for the troops in Boston. They had been requested by some of his -most respectable fellow countrymen. - -Franklin was incredulous. The gentleman then turned over to him some -letters written between 1767 and 1769 by two Massachusetts Crown -officers, both native Americans, Thomas Hutchinson and Andrew Oliver. In -effect, it was as Franklin had been told. Hutchinson, and Oliver too, -pleaded of England “a firm hand,” even armed forces, to keep order. They -demanded for Massachusetts “an abridgment of what are called English -liberties.” - -By the time Franklin read these letters, Oliver was lieutenant governor -of Massachusetts and Thomas Hutchinson was governor. Hutchinson had as -an excuse that his house had been ransacked during the Stamp Act furor. -This did not alter that he had been undermining the work of colonial -agents and betraying the very people he had been chosen to govern. - -In his position as agent for Massachusetts, Franklin knew he must warn -their Assembly. After some reflection, he sent the letters to Thomas -Cushing, asking that they be returned to him after Cushing and members -of the Assembly Committee of Correspondence, a small and trusted group, -had studied them. He further explained that he could not reveal the -source of the letters and that he was not at liberty to make them -public. He had no scruples about showing the letters since they were -political, not personal, but he had to protect the “gentleman of -distinction” who had entrusted them with him. - -In due time the letters reached Cushing, who followed Franklin’s -instructions. Neither Cushing nor anyone else who saw the letters could -prevent their being talked about. In June 1773, Samuel Adams, one of the -most ardent of Boston patriots, read them to a secret session of the -Massachusetts Assembly. Someone took the responsibility of having them -copied and printed. In the public uproar that ensued, the Assembly -prepared a petition to the King to remove both Hutchinson and Oliver -from office. - -Perhaps it was for the best, Franklin decided when the news reached him. -Without reproaches, he wrote Cushing that he was grateful his own name -had not been mentioned, “though I hardly expect it.” He only hoped that -the letters’ publication would not “occasion some riot of mischievous -consequence.” - -He was continuing his own methodical and unrelenting pressure to bring -reason to the English government. In September 1773, an anonymous and -stinging satire appeared in the _Public Advertiser_ under the title -“Rules by Which a Great Empire may be Reduced to a Small One.” Among the -rules cited were: - - Forget that their colonies were founded at the expense of the - colonists; - - Resent their importance to the Empire; - - Suppose them always inclined to revolt, and treat them accordingly; - - Choose “inferior, rapacious and pettifogging” men for governors and - judges in the provinces;—and reward these men for having governed - badly. - -In all, the “Rules” encompassed every fault and folly of which England -was guilty in its treatment of the American colonies. Ministers and -members of Parliament could not doubt that the piece came from the quill -pen of Benjamin Franklin. It was followed by an even more devastating -attack on British policy: “Edict by the King of Prussia.” - -Frederick the Great of Prussia, the “Edict” announced, was now taking up -his claims on the province of Great Britain, which had been settled -originally by German colonists and had never been emancipated. Hence the -Prussian government had the right to exact revenue from its “British -colonies,” to lay duties on all goods they exported or imported, to -forbid all manufacturing in these “colonies.” - -From now on, should the British need hats, they must send raw materials -to Prussia, which would manufacture the hats and let the British -purchase them. (This was exactly the manner in which the British were -preventing American manufacture.) Next, Prussia planned to ship to “the -island of Great Britain” all the “thieves, highway and street robbers, -housebreakers, and murderers” whom they “do not think fit here to hang.” -(Here Franklin returned to an old grievance—Britain’s using the colonies -as a dumping ground for convicts. In 1751 he had proposed -tongue-in-cheek to send American rattlesnakes to England in exchange.) - -He was visiting Lord Le Despencer when a servant brought to the -breakfast table the newspaper which had printed the “Edict” hoax. A -fellow guest named Paul Whitehead read the first paragraphs and -exploded: - -“Here’s the King of Prussia claiming a right to this kingdom.... I dare -say we shall hear by next post that he is upon his march with one -hundred thousand men to back this.” - -Franklin kept a straight face. Whitehead read on until, as absurdities -piled up, it dawned on him that he had been taken: - -“I’ll be hanged, Franklin, if this is not some of your American jokes -upon us.” - -They admitted he had made his point very cleverly and all had a good -laugh. - -But neither the “Rules” nor the “Edict” persuaded Parliament and the -ministry to change their ways. Colonial resentment focused on the tax on -tea, which small as it was, remained a “splinter in the unhealed wound.” -In Boston, on December 16, 1773, fifty citizens, dressed as Mohawk -Indians, defiantly dumped 342 chests of British tea into the ocean. -Parliament, when the news reached London, acted swiftly. Until -restitution was made for the tea, the port of Boston was to be closed. -Four more regiments under General Thomas Gage were sent to keep order. -Boston became an occupied city, unable to conduct its commerce and faced -with financial ruin. - -Pay for the tea, Franklin urged his Boston colleagues. The Boston Tea -Party was an act of lawlessness which could only harm the cause of the -colonies. Just as the colonists were unaware of the problems that faced -him daily in England, so he was too far away to appreciate the fire of -indignation that was sweeping America. - -In the meantime a scandal had erupted in London as a result of the -publication of Governor Hutchinson’s letters. Two gentlemen, William -Whately and John Temple, had each accused the other of making the -letters public. They carried the argument to the newspapers, and then -Temple challenged Whately to a duel. It was fought at Hyde Park on -December 11, with pistols and swords. Whately was wounded. Neither party -was satisfied. - -Franklin was out of town when the duel took place. After he heard about -it, he realized what he had to do. On Christmas Day, a letter signed by -him appeared in the _Public Advertiser_, which said that both Whately -and Temple were “ignorant and innocent” of the publication of the -Hutchinson letters, that he was the one who had obtained them and sent -them to Boston. The entire blame was his. He did not give the name of -the man who had turned the letters over to him. This secret he carried -to his grave. - -How many high-placed persons in England were waiting to get something on -this imperturbable Philadelphian! How many resented the way, like -Socrates’ gadfly, he forced them to admit what they did not want to -admit, and pestered them eternally with his troublesome colonies. Now -they would have their revenge. Franklin knew his admission would bring -wrath on his head. He had not long to wait. - -On January 29, 1774, he was summoned to the Cockpit Tavern, to a meeting -of the King’s Privy Council for Plantation Affairs. The subject given -was the petition of the Massachusetts Assembly for the removal from -office of Andrew Oliver and Governor Hutchinson. Franklin’s friends had -informed him already that the petition was to be denied. There were even -rumors that his papers might be seized and himself thrown in prison. He -was prepared for the worst. - -He arrived on time, dressed in a suit of figured Manchester velvet, -wearing an old-fashioned curled wig, and carrying the same cane with -which he had once quieted the ripples on the stream at Lord Shelburne’s -estate. - -Thirty-six members of the Privy Council were seated around a large -table. Among them were the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of -London, the Duke of Queensberry, Lord Dartmouth, whom he had found -sympathetic; Lord Hillsborough, who hated and feared him; and the Earl -of Sandwich (from whom the word “sandwich” was derived); the London head -of the post office, a conceited individual who disliked everything that -Franklin stood for. Among them, Franklin could be positive of only one -friend—Lord Le Despencer. - -A few spectators had been admitted, including Joseph Priestley, the -scientist, and Edmund Burke, the Irish peer. They stood behind the table -since there were no extra chairs. No one offered Franklin a chair -either. For the entire hearing he stood by the fireplace, facing the -councilors. - -It opened with a reading of the Massachusetts petition and of the -Hutchinson and Oliver letters. Franklin’s lawyer, John Dunning, appealed -to the King’s “wisdom and goodness” to favor the petition and remove the -two men from their posts, as a gesture to quiet colonial unrest. Then -Alexander Wedderburn, lawyer for Hutchinson, took over. - -His speech, which lasted an hour, was from beginning to end a tirade -against Franklin. Franklin could have got hold of the controversial -letters only by fraudulent or corrupt means, he said. His own letter, -clearing Whately and Temple of blame, was “impossible to read without -horror.” Franklin was “a receiver of goods dishonorably come by.” He had -duped the “innocent, well-meaning farmers” of the Massachusetts -Assembly. - -Wedderburn’s accusations grew wilder as he warmed to his subject. -Franklin wanted to become governor himself, he stated categorically. -That was why he had taken on himself “to furnish materials for -dissensions; to set at variance the different branches of the -legislature; and to irritate and incense the minds of the King’s -subjects against the King’s governor.” - -While Wedderburn continued to spew forth his poisonous invective, -Franklin stood stoically, his face impassive, seemingly unaware either -of the triumphal smirks of his enemies or the compassionate glances of -his friends. People agreed later that his silence, in face of the -screams of his adversary, showed him the stronger man. When the hearing -was over, he went quietly home alone. - -He made no answer to Wedderburn, nor even to those closest to him did he -indicate that the attack rankled. To Thomas Cushing he wrote, “Splashes -of dirt thrown upon my character I suffered while fresh to remain. I did -not choose to spread by endeavouring to remove them, but relied on the -vulgar adage that they would all rub off when they were dry.” - -The day after the hearing he was notified of his dismissal as deputy -postmaster-general of the colonies. This was a severe blow, for he had -prided himself on the efficient work he had done in this service. Then, -on February 7, 1774, the King formally rejected the Massachusetts -Assembly petition to remove Hutchinson and Oliver. - -Seemingly Franklin’s usefulness as a provincial agent was ended. He -thought of going home but decided against it. Critical days were ahead. -He felt he might still, in spite of his disgrace, find ways of helping -his country. - -Except that he had no direct dealings with the ministry or Parliament, -his life went on as before. He discussed scientific matters with Joseph -Priestley, among them the phenomenon of marsh gas. When Polly Hewson’s -husband died, leaving her with three children, he grieved with and for -her. He worried lest William be removed from the governorship of New -Jersey as further punishment to him, but this did not happen. - -In September 1774, a dark-haired youngish man, who spoke in the Quaker -manner, paid him a visit. His name was Thomas Paine, he said. He was -fascinated by Franklin’s work in electricity and gave evidence of being -well informed himself on scientific matters. He had also done a bit of -writing, particularly a quite eloquent petition to Parliament on the -plight of the excisemen, a petition that had cost him his own job in the -excise service. - -He had a dream of going to America, Paine confided. Would Dr. Franklin -be good enough to give him some advice? - -Franklin rarely refused such requests. In this case, he was sufficiently -impressed to write a note of recommendation to his son-in-law Richard -Bache. He could not guess the enormous favor he was doing his homeland -by sending Thomas Paine to America’s shores. - -Massachusetts had rejected Franklin’s advice to pay for the Boston Tea -Party. Other colonies were coming to the rescue of beleaguered Boston. -Connecticut sent flocks of sheep. From Virginia came flour. South -Carolina gave rice. Franklin was delighted; at last the colonies were -helping each other, nearly twenty years after he had proposed a union at -the Albany conference. - -When the First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia in May 1774, he -was full of praise for “the coolness, temper, and firmness of the -American proceedings,” and he was all in favor of a strong boycott of -British manufacturers. “If America would save for three or four years -the money she spends in fashions and fineries and fopperies of this -country she might buy the whole Parliament, ministers and all.” - -At last his beloved colonies were learning the value of concerted and -dignified action, so much more effective, in his thinking, than mob -actions. - -As the crisis deepened, one by one important statesmen sought him out -and almost humbly asked his advice as to what they should do. The great -William Pitt summoned him in August. Did he think the colonists would go -as far as to ask for independence? Franklin assured him, truthfully, -that 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.” - -He received an invitation to play chess with the sister of Admiral Lord -Richard Howe. At their second session, Miss Howe pressed him to tell her -what should be done to settle the dispute between Great Britain and the -colonies. “They should kiss and be friends,” he said lightly. Nor would -he be more explicit when she brought Admiral Lord Howe to talk with him. -In his heart he knew it was now too late to repair the many blunders on -the part of Parliament and the King. - -On December 18, 1774, he received the Declaration of Rights and -Grievances, a petition from the First Continental Congress to George -III. The King, who was having the first of those attacks which would end -in insanity, ignored it completely. With William Pitt, Admiral Lord -Howe, and other of the more reasonable officials, Franklin spent long -hours trying to work out a compromise that would keep the peace. It was -all in vain. - -In the midst of these labors, word reached him that his faithful Debby -had died of a stroke on December 19—the day after the arrival of the -petition. - -There would be no more of her warm and loving and atrociously spelled -letters to keep him informed about his relatives: “I donte know wuther -you have bin told that Cosin Benney Mecome and his Lovely wife and five -Dafters is come here to live and work Jurney worke I had them to Dine -and drink tee yisterday....” - -Or to lament the lack of news from him: “I have bin verey much distrest -a bout [you] as I did not [get] oney letter nor one word from you nor -did I hear one word from oney bodey that you wrote to so I muste submit -and indever to submit to what I am to bair.” - -Letters which she might sign “Your afeckshonet wife,” or when she was -less careful “Your ffeckshonot wife.” He would miss them, but above all -he would miss the assurance that she was there waiting for him, loyal -and cheerful, to greet him whenever he returned from his long voyage. - -He stayed on in England only a few months longer. His last day in London -he spent with Joseph Priestley. Together they read papers from America, -and now and then tears ran down Franklin’s cheeks. He was sure America -would win if there were a war, he told Priestley, but it would take at -least ten years. - -On March 25, 1775, he and his grandson Temple embarked on the -_Pennsylvania Packet_. The crossing took six weeks and the weather was -pleasant. In the first half of it, he wrote out the complicated story of -his recent dealings with the ministry in his last futile and desperate -efforts to prevent war. The last part of the journey he devoted to -studying the nature of the Gulf Stream, taking its temperature two to -four times a day, and noting that its water had a special color of its -own and “that it does not sparkle in the night.” - -Thus he was able to enjoy a brief interlude in the world of nature -between the bitter disputes he left behind and the struggle that lay -ahead. - - - - - 12 - BEGINNING OF A LONG WAR - - -He reached Philadelphia on May 5, 1775—an elderly widower, nearly -seventy, grave and saddened by the loss of his wife, by the crisis to -his country which his many years of negotiations could not forestall. -Sally and Richard Bache took him to the house on Market Street which he -had designed but never occupied. Two small grandchildren whom he had -never seen, Benjamin and William Bache, were waiting to embrace him and -to greet their youthful English cousin, Temple. Franklin’s friends of -the Junto and political companions were on hand to give him the big -news. - -On April 19, while he was on the high seas, that was when it had -happened. General Sir William Howe (another brother of the chess-playing -Miss Howe), who was now stationed in Boston, had sent some 800 British -soldiers to Concord, where the Massachusetts Committee of Safety had a -store of arms and ammunition. The Massachusetts Minutemen, forewarned by -Paul Revere, had tried to stop them at Lexington. The Redcoats, who -claimed that the colonials fired first, had killed eight and left ten -wounded, then pushed onwards. It was at Concord where for the first time -in America the King’s subjects shot at the King’s troops. The return of -the Redcoats was a rout, with farmers and tradesmen firing behind every -barn and haystack. General Howe announced 73 of his men slain and 174 -wounded. - -A rebellion was under way and there was no turning back. - -On his second day home, Franklin was chosen as a Pennsylvania delegate -to the Second Continental Congress. It opened on May 10 in the -Philadelphia State House; delegates from all the colonies attended. In -both years and experience, Franklin was the senior member. - -Colonel George Washington, a big quiet man of forty-three, wore his -colonial uniform, as if guessing the heavy responsibility ahead of him -as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Armies. On the day he left for -Cambridge to assume his post, word came of the valiant fight at Breed -Hill (which history would call the Battle of Bunker Hill). Another tall -Virginian joined the Congress, red-haired Thomas Jefferson, thirty-two -years old, lawyer and college graduate and of a wealthy and cultured -family. In spite of differences in age and background, Franklin found -him a kindred spirit. Jefferson, like himself, was a scientist, -inventor, man of letters. - -In July, Congress voted to send another petition to their “gracious -sovereign,” asking for a redress of grievances. Franklin knew in advance -that this “olive branch” petition was a waste of paper, but he did not -voice his objections. Let these impulsive young men of Congress find out -for themselves that the weak and stubborn George III was not on their -side. They would likely not have taken his word anyway. - -In sessions of Congress he spoke less than any man present. In his -school days he had learned a jingle: “A man of words and not of deeds / -Is like a garden full of weeds.” Better to show one’s patriotism in -action than talk. - -Congress did its work largely by committees. Franklin served on a -committee for the making of paper money, on committees to protect colony -trade, to investigate lead ore deposits, and to study the cheapest and -easiest way to procure salt. He was on another committee which -considered, and turned down, a reconciliation plan submitted by Lord -North. He was one of three commissioners appointed to handle Indian -affairs in Pennsylvania and Virginia. - -On July 25, the Congress voted him postmaster-general of the colonies. -The postal system which he set up with his son-in-law Richard Bache was -so efficient and comprehensive that it served as a model to modern -times, giving Franklin right to the title, “Father of the American Post -Office.” - -For local defense, the Pennsylvania Assembly set up a Committee of -Safety, appointing Franklin as president. Among his duties were the -reorganizing of the Philadelphia militia, selecting officers for armed -boats, obtaining medicines for the soldiers. He designed a special -pike—a long wooden pole with pointed metal head—to be used in -hand-to-hand fighting as a substitute for bayonets, which the colonists -did not have. Half-seriously, he proposed use of bows and arrows, in -lieu of more powerful weapons. To keep British warships from coming -within firing range of Philadelphia, he had built huge contraptions of -logs and iron, called _Chevaux de Frise_, to be sunk in the Delaware -River. - -On his papers and plans he worked late night after night. He met with -the Committee of Safety at six each morning. From nine to four he sat in -Congress. It was small wonder that delegate John Adams would catch him -napping during the hot and often wearisome sessions. No one knows how he -found time for his postmaster duties. - -Could anything more be expected of old Ben Franklin who twenty-eight -years before had decided to retire, since he had enough money to live -on, and no man needed more than enough? In all those years he had -continued to work for his city, his province, the thirteen colonies. His -greatest services still lay ahead. - -He was sure America would win—eventually. He had no illusions about the -hardships involved. England was the most powerful country in the world, -swollen with the glory of its victories over France and Spain. Its -superb navy was rivaled by none. Its army was well-trained, well-armed, -disciplined, and numerous. The Americans had to start from scratch. - -The embargo against English goods had boomeranged sadly. America was -still an agricultural country with little manufacturing of its own. -There were shortages of necessities and of luxuries. That year Abigail -Adams sent a tearful request to her husband, John, to buy her a box of -pins in Philadelphia—even if it cost ten dollars. - -The most urgent need was for arms and ammunition. From General -Washington at Cambridge came letter after letter, pleading for them. One -note, confessing that he had no more than half a pound of gunpowder per -soldier, fell into the hands of General Howe—who thought it was a trick. -(It was not until March 1776 that Henry Knox brought down guns captured -at Ticonderoga and Washington could frighten Howe and his troops from -Boston.) - -One of Franklin’s many Congressional committees was formed to promote -the manufacture of saltpeter for gunpowder. Progress was slow. -Throughout the war, the colonies produced only about fifty tons of -gunpowder. Obviously home manufacture was not the answer. - -In July, Congress had a visitor from Bermuda, Colonel Henry Tucker, who -headed the island’s local militia. Tucker was sympathetic to the -Americans as were many Bermudians. There was for a time talk of Bermuda -being the fourteenth colony to revolt against British domination. It had -previously been dependent on America for foodstuffs, but as it was a -British possession shipments had been stopped. Colonel Tucker had come -to plead that the ban be lifted. - -Franklin found occasion to talk with Tucker privately and one thing the -Bermudian told him interested him greatly. At the Royal Arsenal at St. -George, there was a large stock of gunpowder—and no guard. - -On Franklin’s recommendation, Congress put through a blanket order to -exchange food for guns with any vessel arriving on the American coast, -an order which evaded the controversial point of trading with an enemy. -Bermuda was promised not only food, but candles, soap and lumber. There -was another deal with Colonel Tucker, about which only those intimately -concerned were informed. - -In August, two ships set sail for Bermuda—the _Lady Catherine_ from -Virginia and the _Savannah Pacquet_ from South Carolina. At Mangrove -Bay, their crews disembarked, to be welcomed by friendly Bermudians, -including the son of Colonel Tucker. Bermudians and American seamen -boarded small boats and sailed along the coast to St. George, where, on -the estate of Bermuda’s Governor James Bruere, the Royal Arsenal was -located. - -The raiders waited until the governor, his fourteen children, and his -numerous watchdogs were all asleep. They proceeded so stealthily that -not even a dog was wakened. A sailor, lowered into the arsenal through a -vent in the roof, unlocked the doors from inside. Barrels of powder were -rolled to the waiting boats. Then the party took off. - -Twelve days later the _Lady Catherine_ arrived at Philadelphia with -1,800 pounds of gunpowder, while the _Savannah Pacquet_ delivered its -cargo at Charleston. - -This was Franklin’s first victory in his battle for ammunition. Although -Governor Bruere, on discovering his loss, promptly sent for British -warships to patrol the island, Bermudian sloops continued to get through -to America, and American ships managed regularly to maneuver around the -patrol. The trade continued for the benefit of both Americans and -Bermudians. - -In the midst of this hectic summer, Franklin spent one long and -miserable evening with William, the son whom he had made part of his -life as much as any father ever had. He had hoped his flesh and blood -would share his burning indignation at English oppression. The most -bitter disillusion of his life now faced him. The governor of New Jersey -haughtily denied any sympathy for the “American rabble.” His loyalty was -to the Crown, and that was that. - -Franklin continued to write affectionately to Temple, who had gone to -stay with his father, but the breach between him and his first-born son -remained deep. - -The Bermuda raid was Franklin’s first step toward a larger plan. The -Secret Committee to further importation of war supplies was set up on -September 18, 1775. Among those serving with him was Robert Morris, the -prosperous merchant who became the financial genius of the American -Revolution. The Committee was granted substantial sums of money and wide -powers. It made contracts with American merchants who, with permits -issued by Congress, took cargoes to the West Indies, Martinique, Santo -Domingo, and even Europe, bringing back arms and ammunition. - -Part of the Committee’s work was to get in touch with merchants from -many countries. England was no exception. The friendships Franklin had -formed among English merchants when he was seeking repeal of the Stamp -Act now proved their value. These merchants knew they could trust him -and were not adverse to giving a helping hand to the Americans and -making a profit at the same time. - -There was in the West Indies a tiny island no more than seven or eight -miles square called St. Eustatius, a dependency of Holland and an -international free port. Statia, as the Americans called it, had long -been a market for smuggled goods from every corner of the globe. Now it -became an arsenal to which merchants from Holland, France, England, and -other nations brought war materials to be picked up by American vessels. -The British government, through its excellent espionage system, knew -what was happening but could not prevent it. - -“Powder cruises,” these ventures were called. They were only one phase -of American sea activity. There was in time a Continental Navy, which -was never very effective. Individual colonies had their own navies. -There were also the romantic privateers, privately owned vessels with -commissions from Congress, which by the first twenty months of the war -had captured over 700 English vessels—and made fortunes for their owners -and crews. The powder cruises alone were planned for the sole purpose of -getting war materials for the fighting forces. - -They were a long-range project. It took time to fit and man and load the -ships, more time for them to make their journeys and return. Not for two -years would the Americans have enough ammunition to win a major -engagement. Before this happened, there were hard days ahead. - -On October 4, Franklin rode off to visit Washington’s camp at Cambridge, -on a Congressional mission with Thomas Lynch of South Carolina and -Benjamin Harrison of Virginia. If he was a little flabbergasted at the -motley assembly of backwoodsmen, farmers and teenage youths to whom -Washington was trying to teach military discipline, he did not say so. -These were his people. He was proud of them and what they had set out to -do. - -On his return, he stopped in Warwick, Rhode Island, where his sister -Jane Mecom, an old woman now, had taken refuge from British-occupied -Boston with their old friends, the Greenes. Besides himself, she was the -only one of Josiah Franklin’s seventeen children who was still living. -Happily, she did not yet know that her Boston home was being looted in -her absence. - -“Sorrows roll over me like the waves of the sea,” she had written -Franklin a few years before on the death of her adored daughter Polly. -She was worried now about her son Benjamin, who was unable to hold a job -and whose wife and children were destitute (the same whom Debby had -written her husband that she had had to tea). Only a few months later, -his mind completely gone, Benjamin wandered out in the dark, never to be -seen again. - -In spite of the repeated blows of a cruel fate, Jane had remained -warmhearted and thoughtful. Franklin, who had the tenderest affection -for her, brought her back to Philadelphia, where she stayed with him for -the next year. Always he had humored her, given her and her inevitably -needy family material help, written her long and loving letters—and -occasionally fretted at her constant solicitude. - -On this same trip he distributed a hundred pounds, sent by English -friends to aid the wounded of Lexington and Concord and the widows and -orphans of those who had been killed. It is possible that one of the -generous donors was Joseph Priestley, to whom Franklin wrote about this -time: - -“Britain, at the expense of three millions, has killed one hundred and -fifty Yankees in this campaign, which is twenty thousand pounds a -head.... During the same time sixty thousand children have been born in -America.” - -His letter was quoted throughout England, where the hearts of many lay -not with their own corrupt Parliament, but with those who had the -courage to oppose it. - - - - - 13 - THE SPLENDID WORD INDEPENDENCE - - -As Franklin had foreseen, the King paid no heed to the “olive branch” -petition of the Second Continental Congress. By Royal proclamation all -Americans were declared Rebels. The British had burned Charlestown in -June and Falmouth in October 1775. It was hinted they were buying -mercenaries from German princes. That foreigners should be paid by the -English to kill English subjects seemed the greatest insult of all. - -Franklin composed a short letter to William Strahan, his English printer -friend: - - Mr. Strahan: - - You are a member of Parliament, and one of that majority which has - doomed my country to destruction. You have begun to burn our towns and - murder our people. Look upon your hands! They are stained with the - blood of your relations. You and I were long friends. You are now my - enemy, and I am - - Yours, - B. Franklin. - -He did not send this cruel note, but instead wrote Strahan a warm and -cordial letter which Strahan answered in kind. Perhaps he had written -the first one to see how it sounded and when he read it over did not -like it. Throughout the conflict he found ways of carrying on a -correspondence with those he cherished in England. - -On November 29, 1775, the Congressional Committee of Secret -Correspondence was formed with five members—Benjamin Franklin and John -Dickinson of Pennsylvania, Benjamin Harrison of Virginia, Thomas Johnson -of Maryland, and John Jay of New York. Its assignment was to establish -closer relations with foreign nations, and where possible to make allies -of those nations. With these duties, the Committee of Secret -Correspondence became the predecessor of the United States Department of -State. - -As a member of the new committee, Franklin wrote his friend Charles -Dumas, a Swiss journalist with many political connections: “We wish to -know whether, if, as seems likely to happen, we should be obliged to -break off all connection with Britain, and declare ourselves an -independent people, there is any state or power in Europe, who would be -willing to enter into an alliance with us for the benefits of our -commerce.” In a similar vein he sounded out Barbeu Dubourg, his Paris -printer, who had, as he knew, friends high in the French government. - -The French were already watching America with interest. The harsh terms -of the 1763 treaty with Great Britain still rankled. They welcomed any -struggle that would involve England’s military forces, particularly if -it could be prolonged to seriously weaken her. - -In December 1775, a certain Monsieur Achard de Bonvouloir, allegedly an -Antwerp merchant, arrived in Philadelphia. Through a French bookseller -he arranged to meet Franklin, to whom he admitted that he had -connections at the Court of Versailles. In truth he was a French agent, -sent by Louis XVI’s foreign minister, Count Charles Gravier de -Vergennes, to appraise the American situation. - -Franklin arranged for Bonvouloir to meet with the Committee of Secret -Correspondence at a quiet house in the outskirts of Philadelphia. It -turned out to be a very crucial meeting. The French government did not -object to American ships coming into her ports to pick up cargoes, -Bonvouloir said. If the British complained of the presence of these -ships as a breach of neutrality, the government would simply plead -ignorance of what was going on. But in return for this welcome assurance -of free trade, the French wanted to make sure that America intended to -declare its independence from England. - -Independence was a word as yet heard rarely. Though Franklin had -mentioned its possibility in his letter to Dumas, he knew that few other -members of Congress, much less the American people, were ready for such -a drastic step. The urgent need for French cooperation made him speak -out boldly. - -Certainly the Americans were going to separate from England, he told -Bonvouloir blandly. The country was behind the war to a man. Everything -was going splendidly. General Washington’s army was growing. - -There was exaggeration in his statements. Not only was talk of -independence rare, but America was peppered with Loyalists, those who, -like Franklin’s own son, were opposed to action against the British -Crown. While new recruits were joining Washington, many simply walked -off when their time of service was up, and some were deserting outright. -But Franklin’s words were a magnificent prophecy. He was speaking from -his own profound faith in his countrymen, and his confidence was -contagious. Bonvouloir sent back a glowing report to the French minister -Vergennes; France’s secret alliance with America began from that time. - -If Americans were not more solidly behind the rebellion, it was that -their emotions had not been deeply aroused. Was not the chief dispute a -matter of taxes? No one likes to pay taxes, but though people were ready -to parade and protest against them, not all were willing to risk their -lives rather than pay them. It took the protégé of Franklin, Thomas -Paine, to point out that the rebellion was for something much more -important than taxes. - -Paine had settled in Philadelphia, taken a job with the _Pennsylvania -Magazine_, and had, in the few months he had been in America, written -some fine articles, among them one of the first attacks on slavery to -appear in the American press. Franklin saw him in October and proposed -that he write “a history of the present transactions,” an account of -events that had led to the present crisis. Paine had only looked -mysterious, saying that he was working on something. - -Then in January 1776, Franklin received the first copy off the press of -a pamphlet titled “Common Sense.” Though it was published anonymously, -“written by an Englishman,” he guessed easily who had written it. - -“Common Sense,” written simply and clearly, was a passioned and reasoned -plea for secession from England. It showed Americans how much they had -to gain from independence and how little there was to lose. It made them -hold up their heads with the pride of being American and convinced them -they were fighting for the most precious thing in the world—their -freedom. There is no estimating the enormous service done by “Common -Sense” in uniting the colonies in a common cause. - -In February, Franklin sent in his resignation to the Pennsylvania -Assembly and its Committee of Safety: “Aged as I am, I feel myself -unequal to do so much business....” At the same time he accepted another -arduous assignment from Congress, to head a delegation to Canada to try -and win French Canadians to the side of the colonies. - -Two expeditions had already been sent to wrest Quebec from the British, -one under General Richard Montgomery, the other under Colonel Benedict -Arnold. Both had failed. Montgomery had been killed. Arnold, severely -wounded, had retreated with his battered army to Montreal. - -Franklin, aged seventy, set out on his mission the last week of March -1776. There were stops in New York, Albany, and in Saratoga where the -snow was still six inches deep. From there they rode horseback across to -the Hudson and proceeded up the river in rowboats to Fort Edward. “I -began to apprehend that I have undertaken a fatigue that at my time of -life may prove too much for me,” Franklin wrote Josiah Quincy. - -They sailed along the coast of Lake George in open flatboats, fighting -their way through ice. When the cold grew too bitter, they stopped to -make fires, thaw out, and brew tea. By April 25 they had reached Lake -Champlain, and in clumsy wagons drove over bad roads to the St. -Lawrence, where they again took to boats. Their hard journey ended at -Montreal on the 29th. Benedict Arnold, now a general, came to meet them, -and there was a cannon salute to the “Committee of the Honourable -Continental Congress,” and to the “celebrated Dr. Franklin.” - -The conferences the next day proved what Franklin had doubtless -suspected. The Canadians for the most part found British rule preferable -to French rule and were not dissatisfied. The majority were Catholic and -as such hostile to the colonies because of unpleasant things that had -been said about their faith. - -General Arnold and his men were penniless. Franklin loaned them about -350 pounds of his own money in gold. On May 6, word came that the -British were sending reinforcements from England. Franklin guessed that -the Americans would be driven from Canada; it happened just a month -later. He stayed on until May 11, then, realizing nothing more could be -done, set out for home. - -He was in New York by the 27th, as worn out and ill as though the vain -mission had drained the last bit of his strength. His health returned -slowly. From Philadelphia, on June 21, he wrote Washington that gout had -kept him from “Congress and company”—that he knew little of what had -passed except that “a declaration of independence was in the making.” - -To this development, the magic of “Common Sense” deserved credit. On -April 12, North Carolina had instructed its delegates to Congress to -vote for independence. Other colonies followed suit. On June 7, Richard -Henry Lee introduced a resolution that “these colonies are, and of a -right ought to be, free and independent states.” Three days later -Congress appointed Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Robert Livingston of -New York, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, and Benjamin Franklin, as a -committee to prepare the declaration. - -Jefferson produced the first draft. John Adams and Franklin made only a -few alterations before it was submitted to Congress on June 18. - -Congress nearly drove the Committee out of its mind with demands for -extensive changes. One clause which attacked slavery was deleted -altogether. When nerves grew tense, Franklin told a story. - -There was a hatter he had once known who built a handsome signboard -reading, “John Thompson, hatter, makes and sells hats for some ready -money,” adorned with a picture of a hat. He submitted it to his friends -for approval. One thought the word “hatter” unnecessary. Another that -“makes” was not needed. A third thought “for ready money” useless, since -no one then sold for credit. His next friend insisted “sells hats” be -omitted; no one expected him to give them away. All that was left, when -his friends were through with him, was his name “John Thompson” and the -drawing of the hat. - -The moral lesson implied may have speeded up the Congressional process. -At length, the Declaration met with approval. John Hancock, in big black -writing, affixed his signature first. According to legend, Hancock said, -“We must be unanimous; there must be no pulling different ways; we must -all hang together.” To which Franklin allegedly replied, “We must indeed -all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.” - -The ideas in the Declaration were not new. Many of them had been said by -others, specifically by Thomas Paine, in phraseology not too different -from Jefferson’s. The document, adopted by Congress on July 4, 1776, -remained the greatest charter of freedom of all time. - -In the midst of the wonder of independence, the New Jersey Assembly -ordered the arrest of its governor, William Franklin, as a Loyalist, -another sad blow for his father. He was first held under guard at his -home, then taken to Connecticut, where he was kept for two years in the -Litchfield jail or on parole. Temple came to live with his grandfather, -attending the Pennsylvania Academy which Franklin had started so many -years before. - -The Declaration of Independence, splendid as it was, still was only -words on paper. The reality was far in the future and the present looked -very dark. - -On and around Long Island was gathered the greatest British -expeditionary force in history. Some 32,000 men (including German -mercenaries whom the Americans called Hessians) and 500 vessels were -there in command of General Sir William Howe who, after leaving Boston, -had gone to Halifax for reinforcements. And in the harbor, a mighty -fleet under his brother Admiral Lord Richard Howe. And in Manhattan, -General George Washington with less than half as many men, ill-clad and -hungry and a good portion too sick to fight. - -To get a foothold on Long Island, Washington took half his army to -Brooklyn Heights. The results were disastrous—a surprise attack by the -British on August 27, brought American casualties, killed and wounded, -to nearly two thousand. It was to the credit of Washington, and John -Glover’s Marbleheaders and former Salem sailors, that boats were found -to carry the survivors back to Manhattan under the cloak of night. - -Why did not the Howe brothers pursue them then and there? They needed -only to send a force up the Hudson or Long Island Sound to trap the -Rebels and cut to pieces America’s principal army. Yet they dawdled a -while. Why? - -The truth was that Admiral Lord Howe, whom Franklin had first met at the -home of his sister, had come in a dual role of warrior and peace -ambassador. He was empowered to offer full pardon to all Rebels (with -the secret exception of John Adams) and on his arrival had sent Franklin -a flattering and friendly letter making a proposal for -reconciliation—which Franklin, with the sanction of Congress, had turned -down in an equally cordial missive. - -Soon after the Battle of Long Island, Lord Howe sent another request to -Philadelphia, by a paroled prisoner, General John Sullivan, for -delegates to come and discuss a settlement of hostilities. Franklin, -John Adams, and Edward Rutledge of South Carolina were chosen. They met -Lord Howe and his staff on September 11, at a neglected house on Staten -Island, in a room hung with moss and branches. Americans and British -dined on cold ham, tongue, mutton, bread, and claret, all the while -making polite conversation. Then they got to business. Lord Howe did -most of the talking. - -He felt for America as for a brother, he said, and should lament, as a -brother, should America fall. - -“My Lord, we will use our utmost endeavors to save your lordship that -mortification,” Franklin said with a guileless smile. - -“The King’s most earnest desire” was to make his American subjects -happy, Howe continued. They would redress any real grievances. It was -not money they wanted. America’s solid advantage to Great Britain was -“her commerce, her strength, her men.” - -“Aye, my Lord,” Franklin said, chuckling, “we have a pretty considerable -manufactory of men.” He was referring not, as Howe’s secretary presumed, -to the growing army, but to America’s rapidly increasing population. - -Howe continued to plead for a resumption of the old relationship with -England. Franklin told him firmly that was impossible. Had not their -defenseless towns been burned in the midst of winter, Indians encouraged -to massacre their farmers, and slaves to murder their masters—and now -foreign mercenaries brought to deluge their settlements with blood? Ah -no, after these atrocious injuries, there could be no return to their -previous status. - -The conference ended on this impasse. - -Following this meeting, the British drove Washington north to Harlem -Heights and on to White Plains. During the evacuation, New York caught -fire and a third of it burned. No one ever knew who was responsible. The -situation looked hopeless—unless substantial aid could be had from -outside. And where could they go for such aid if not to France? - -Congress chose three commissioners to represent America at the French -court—Jefferson, Franklin, and Silas Deane of Connecticut, who was -already in Paris. When Jefferson declined because of his wife’s health, -Arthur Lee, cousin of “Light-Horse Harry” Lee of Virginia, was chosen in -his place. - -Before he left, Franklin appointed Richard Bache as deputy postmaster -and turned over to Congress all the money he could raise as a -loan—around 4,000 pounds. To his friend Joseph Galloway, he entrusted -his trunk, containing his correspondence from the years he had spent in -England, as well as the only existing manuscript of his _Autobiography_. -He took with him two grandsons, eighteen-year-old Temple Franklin, and -Benjamin Franklin Bache, age seven. They left on the sloop _Reprisal_, -October 27, 1776. - -Did the two youths know what a perilous journey they were making, with -the English Navy prowling the seas in search of just such prizes as the -_Reprisal_? Temple at least must have realized that if they were -captured, his gray-haired grandfather would be considered a prize more -valuable than any ship, and would certainly be hanged as a traitor. Not -only was the crossing made safely but within two days of landing, the -passengers had the thrill of witnessing their captain take two British -“prizes,” which the _Reprisal_ on December 3 brought to Auray on the -coast of Brittany. - - - - - 14 - FRANCE FALLS IN LOVE WITH AN AMERICAN - - -“The carriage was a miserable one,” Franklin wrote of the trip from -Auray to the French town of Nantes, where the _Reprisal_ would have -brought them had it not been for the two prizes. “With tired horses, the -evening dark, scarce a traveler but ourselves on the road; and, to make -it more comfortable, the driver stopped near a wood we were to pass -through, to tell us that a gang of eighteen robbers infested that wood -who but two weeks ago had murdered some travelers on that very spot.” - -The Nantes townspeople were expecting the celebrated American and were -waiting to greet him as he descended from his carriage. - -Instead of a curled and powdered wig, he wore a fur cap over his thin -gray straight hair, which he had adopted on shipboard for reasons of -comfort. His costume was of brown homespun worsted, with white stockings -and buckled shoes. He wore spectacles, because at seventy vanity was -less important to him than seeing clearly. He carried a plain crabtree -cane, such as any man could have cut for himself. - -“A _primitive_!” people exclaimed. His simple attire delighted them all. - -For his few days in Nantes he stayed with a commercial agent, Monsieur -Gruet. A string of visitors appeared afternoon and evenings to pay their -respects. He spoke little, knowing his French was imperfect, and his -silence made him seem all the wiser. Everyone was filled with -admiration. The women of the town paid him their greatest tribute in a -_Coiffure à la Franklin_, dressing their hair in a high curly mass to -resemble his fur cap. - -His welcome at Nantes was only a preview of what attended him in Paris. -His printer, Barbeu Dubourg, had prepared the populace by distributing -circulars about his visit. For two days before his arrival, he was the -sole subject of conversation in Paris cafés. Wherever he went, admiring -citizens surrounded him, remarking on the simplicity of his costume and -his unaffected manners. Silas Deane, who had received no such attention -on his arrival, was amazed. But then, Deane had little love for the -French people, had made no effort to learn their language, and was -obviously unhappy in this foreign environment. - -From Deane, Franklin learned of a plan already under way to help -America. A dummy exporting house had been set up under the name of -Hortalez and Company, to which the French and Spanish governments had -each contributed a million livres. (The livre is replaced by the franc -in modern French currency.) When Deane had reached Paris a few months -before, authorized to buy supplies, Foreign Minister Vergennes had -promptly sent him to the head of Hortalez, a dashing adventurer named -Caron de Beaumarchais (who would later become known for his librettos of -_The Marriage of Figaro_ and _The Barber of Séville_). The company was -now arranging to send arms and ammunition, uniforms, everything the -colonies needed. - -Since this was Deane’s project, Franklin did not interfere. Later, when -Americans found they were receiving inferior goods from Hortalez, when -Congress was billed for what they were told was a gift, when -Beaumarchais unaccountably became wealthy, and even Deane was accused of -dishonesty, he may have wished that he had kept a closer check. For the -moment, he had plenty of other work to do. - -Silas Deane as well as Arthur Lee, the third commissioner, both gave him -advice on how to conduct himself. Deane, a blunt and tactless man, was -all for forcing the issue with France. Arthur Lee, who had an intriguing -nature, advocated a devious approach. Franklin listened attentively to -both of them and went his own way. - -On December 28, he and Deane were received at Versailles by Vergennes, -of whom Franklin had already heard so much. As usual, he wore his brown -worsted suit and his head was bare, with no wig to hide his gray locks. -Though he did little more than transmit expressions of good will and -gratitude from his country, the suave and polished French diplomat -summed him up as a great and good man. Henceforth, whenever possible, -Vergennes avoided dealing with any American other than Benjamin -Franklin. - -The next night he attended a soiree held by Madame la Marquise du -Deffand. Her guests were the most important personages in Europe. The -Marquise was known to be strongly pro-British. Everyone expected that -Monsieur Franklin from Philadelphia would be put in his place. How could -he compete in this brilliant company? He was much too clever to try. All -evening he sat quietly smiling, waiting for others to do the talking, -listening with interest to everything that was said, even by the ladies. -The company was enchanted. They had believed all Americans to be bold -and rude-mannered and self-assertive. This Monsieur Franklin, who -dressed like a Quaker, was a sage, a patriarch! They had never known -anyone like him. From then on, the aristocracy gave him their adoration, -as did the scientific world and the common people. - -A few days later there was a gift of two million livres, not connected -with the funds at Hortalez, presented for the American cause in the name -of the French King. Franklin had, without resort to bullying or -conniving, scored his first victory in French diplomacy. - -For fear of British retaliation, Vergennes dared not openly sponsor him. -Privately he was doing all in his power to convince Louis XVI that the -American rebellion, even though against another king, should be -supported to the hilt. This was not easy, for the French ruler was not -yet ready to show more than a token interest in the Americans. Franklin -understood Vergennes’ position and did not press him for what he had -really come to get, an open alliance. His most important task, from -Vergennes’ viewpoint, was to win French public opinion to his side. This -he did without half trying. - -His popularity mounted daily. For the French he was a man of reason, -like their Voltaire, and an advocate of the equality of man and the -virtues of rustic living, like their philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau. -They saw him as the man who had singlehandedly fomented the American -Revolution, a rumor carefully nourished by the British Ambassador in -Paris, Lord Stormont. - -He was given credit for the Declaration of Independence and the -Pennsylvania Constitution. Not knowing yet of Thomas Paine, people took -it for granted that he was the author of that marvelous pamphlet “Common -Sense,” which was reprinted in French with the omission of its attacks -on royalty. They admired him alike for his scientific achievements and -for “The Way of Wealth,” the proverbs of Poor Richard as cited by Father -Abraham, which they praised to the skies as “sublime morality.” - -It became the fashion of every home to have an engraving of him above -the mantel. Medallions with his image in enamel adorned the lids of -snuffboxes, and tiny ones were even set in rings, selling in incredible -numbers. In time his portrait was reproduced on watches, clocks, vases, -dishes, handkerchiefs, pocket knives. There were paintings of him -without end, and busts in marble, bronze and plaster. “These,” Franklin -wrote to his daughter Sally, “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.” - -The first of March he moved from the Paris hotel where he and his -grandsons had been staying to Passy, a beautiful spot half a mile from -Paris, less a village than a group of villas set amidst forests and -vineyards. Their house was on the great estate of Le Ray de Chaumont, an -ardent partisan of the United States, who refused to accept rent from -his distinguished guest. - -The grounds of the Chaumont estate were laid out in formal gardens -around an octagonal pond, with alleys of linden trees. Often Franklin -and his grandsons ate at the lavish Chaumont table, or had their meals -sent from the Chaumont kitchen for a minimum charge. When he gave a -large dinner party in his own quarters, everything would be sent over by -the Chaumont staff. He had his own servants, including a coachman, and -kept a carriage and a pair of horses. Benjamin Bache went to boarding -school in the village, coming home for Sunday. Temple acted as his -secretary. - -The British, who had spies everywhere, were well aware of the reason for -his presence in France. Vainly did British Ambassador Lord Stormont try -to belittle him or his country. He could not match Franklin’s wit. Once -Franklin learned that Stormont was spreading a rumor that 4,000 -Americans had been lost in a battle and their general killed. “Truth is -one thing. Stormont is another,” he commented dryly. In Parisian slang, -the verb “to Stormont” became a synonym for “to lie.” - -In truth, with the exception of Washington’s victory over the Hessians -at Trenton, the Christmas of 1776, news from America was discouraging. -Franklin refused to show any sign of worry. “_Ça ira_,”—“it will go -on”—he would say to anyone who asked how the American Revolution was -faring. In the years of France’s own revolution, Franklin’s famous _Ça -ira_ became the catchword of a popular war song. - -Some time that summer, or so it is said, Franklin passed a night at the -same inn as Edward Gibbon, author of _Rise and Fall of the Roman -Empire_. Franklin sent up a note requesting the pleasure of his company. -Gibbon answered that though he admired Franklin as a philosopher he -could not, as a loyal English subject, converse with a Rebel. Franklin -promptly sent him a second note. He had the greatest respect for the -historian, he wrote, and when Gibbon decided to write the _Rise and Fall -of the British Empire_, he would be happy to supply all the needed data. - -The revolt in America had enormous glamour for innumerable European -officers who were eager to offer their services, for money, for the -thrill of adventure, and perhaps less often because they believed in the -American cause. Franklin was besieged with their requests for him to -recommend them to the American army. “My perpetual torment,” he called -them: - - People will believe, notwithstanding my continually repeated - declaration to the contrary, that I am sent hither to engage officers. - You have no conception how I am harassed.... Great officers of all - ranks, in all departments; ladies, great and small, besides professed - solicitors, worry me from morning to night.... I am afraid to accept - an invitation to dine abroad, being almost sure of meeting some - officer or some officer’s friend who, as soon as I am put in good - humour with a glass of champagne, begins his attack upon me. - -Only partly in jest, he composed a form letter: - - The bearer of this, who is going to America, presses me to give him a - letter of recommendation, though I know nothing of him, not even his - name. This may seem extraordinary, but I assure you 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. - -Temple later claimed that he actually used this letter on occasion, -though it has never been proved. - -There was, however, one officer whom Franklin recommended to George -Washington without ever having met. This was the nineteen-year-old -Marquis de Lafayette, an ardent youth set on revenging a father killed -by the English. “He is exceedingly beloved,” he wrote Washington early -in August after Lafayette had already left France, “and everybody’s good -wishes attend him; we cannot but hope he may meet with such a reception -as will make the country and his expedition agreeable to him.” - -Another valuable recruit Franklin sent to America was the former -Prussian officer Baron von Steuben, whose rigid training of American -troops at Valley Forge raised morale at a moment when it had sunk to a -new low. - -In England, he still had friends in high places. Lord Rockingham was -praising his courage in crossing the Atlantic, risking capture and being -brought to an “implacable tribunal.” Charles James Fox, a member of Lord -North’s cabinet, was quoting to his fellow cabinet members Franklin’s -remark that England’s war on America would be as costly and useless as -the Crusades. While to George III he had become “that insidious man from -Philadelphia,” Sir John Pringle, now president of the Royal Society, -supported him in one of the few comic episodes of wartime. - -During Franklin’s stay in England, he had given advice on installing -lightning rods on St. Paul’s Cathedral and other important buildings. -One member of the Royal Society, Benjamin Wilson, an artist who had -painted Franklin’s portrait, argued that blunt lightning rods would be -more effective than pointed ones, but he had been over-ruled. The battle -between “the sharps and the flats” raged briefly and then subsided. - -It was revived when the war was under way by George III, who felt that -since pointed lightning rods had been invented by a Rebel, they must -certainly be subversive. He ordered that the rods on his palace and -throughout the United Kingdom be replaced by the blunt type and -commanded Sir John Pringle to back him. Sir John boldly retorted that -the laws of nature were not changeable at royal pleasure. He was -thereupon informed that the royal authority did not believe that a man -of his views should occupy the presidency of the Royal Society. Sir -John, loyal to Franklin to the end, promptly resigned. - -As for Franklin, he remained an objective observer: “I have never -entered into any controversy in defense of my philosophical opinions,” -he wrote in October 1777. “I leave them to take their chances in the -world. If they are _right_, truth and experience will support them; if -_wrong_, they ought to be refuted and rejected. Disputes are apt to sour -one’s temper, and disturb one’s quiet.” - -In November a visitor to Passy informed him that General Howe had taken -Philadelphia. (Congress had fled to York, Pennsylvania, which became -temporarily the capital of the United States.) Calm and smiling, -Franklin countered, “I beg your pardon, sir. Philadelphia has taken -Howe.” - -Inwardly, he was gravely concerned. His daughter and her family, his -home, those he loved, and everything he owned was in Philadelphia. But -he could not afford to let his anxiety show. - -He considered at this time telling Vergennes that unless America could -count on a French alliance, they would have to make terms with England, -but decided the threat might boomerang and force the French to abandon -them. Best wait until the news was better. It so happened he had not -long to wait. - -On December 4, a messenger from Boston arrived at Passy, to announce -that General John Burgoyne, whom the British had sent to Canada to lead -an army to invade the colonies from the north, had been defeated at -Saratoga. Beaumarchais, who was present when this news came, drove off -to Paris so recklessly that his carriage upset and his arm was broken. - -Franklin and his two commissioners promptly drew up a dispatch for -Vergennes. Two days later Conrad-Alexandre Gérard of the foreign office -arrived at Passy with Vergennes’ congratulations—and a request that the -Americans renew their proposal for an alliance. - -Franklin drafted the proposal on December 7 and Temple delivered it the -next day. On the 12th, the commissioners met secretly with Vergennes. -Franklin hoped the matter could be settled there and then but the French -minister said France could not agree to an alliance without Spain. It -took three weeks for a courier to make the trip and bring back an answer -from Spain. It was negative. Temporarily negotiations were at a -standstill. - -In the meantime England had sent an envoy named Paul Wentworth to parley -with the Americans. He passed himself off as a stock speculator though -he was actually chief of the British espionage. Silas Deane saw him -several times. Wentworth told him that the British ministry was ready to -return to the imperial status of before 1763, suggested a general -armistice with all British troops withdrawn except those on the New York -islands, and added, insinuatingly, that any Americans who helped to -bring about an understanding would be rewarded with wealth and titles -and high administrative posts. - -Franklin knew about Wentworth but refused to see him until January 6, a -week after the news of Spain’s rejection of the alliance. That day he -conferred two hours with Wentworth, devoting the whole time to a recital -of England’s crimes against America. After that he and Wentworth had -dinner with Silas Deane and his assistant Edward Bancroft (who was also -an English spy). - -The results of this dinner were exactly what Franklin anticipated. It -was duly reported to Vergennes, who could only judge that negotiations -for a reconciliation between England and America were under way, which -was the last thing in the world he wanted. The very next day the French -King’s council voted formally on a treaty and an alliance with the -United States of America. - -The signing of the treaty took place on Friday, February 7, 1778, at the -office of the ministry for foreign affairs in the Hotel de Lautrec, -Paris. For this all important occasion Franklin donned an old costume, -somewhat old-fashioned and rather too tight for him, of figured -Manchester velvet. Someone asked him why. “To get it a little revenge,” -Franklin said. “I wore this coat on the day Wedderburn abused me.” - -The ceremony was simple. Gérard signed first, then Franklin, after which -Arthur Lee and Silas Deane added their names. A magnificent diplomatic -campaign had been won. - -On March 20, Louis XVI avowed the treaty by receiving the three -commissioners in his private quarters at Versailles. Franklin wore a -brown velvet suit, white hose, and carried a white hat under his arm. He -had neither wig nor sword, and his spectacles were on his nose. The -courtiers claimed they had never seen anything so striking as this -“republican simplicity.” - -To the commissioners, the King said, “Firmly assure Congress of my -friendship. I hope that this will be for the good of the two nations.” - -Franklin responded for his fellow envoys. “Your Majesty may count on the -gratitude of Congress and its faithful observance of the pledges it now -takes.” - -That evening Vergennes gave a great dinner in their honor at Versailles. -Later they made a call on the royal family. The charming and beautiful -Marie Antoinette, who was at her gambling table, insisted that Franklin -stand by her, and talked to him in between making her bids at -exceedingly high stakes. It was certainly the first time in history that -the son of an American candlemaker kept company with a queen. - - - - - 15 - AMERICA’S FIRST AMBASSADOR - - -In the spring after the signing of the treaty with France, Silas Deane -was recalled to America. John Adams was sent to take his place. Franklin -invited him and his wife Abigail to stay with him at Passy, and arranged -for their ten-year-old son John Quincy to go to school with Benjamin -Bache. - -The comfortable life at Passy made Puritan-minded Adams uncomfortable. -Though Franklin’s taste in dress and food was exceedingly simple -compared to the French aristocrats with whom he had to keep company, -Adams found him extravagant. He felt it a waste of money that Arthur Lee -should have separate quarters in Paris. At the same time he objected -that no rent was paid at Passy and vainly tried to get Chaumont to -accept payment. - -He could not help himself. Basically it was simply impossible for him to -approve of someone like Benjamin Franklin: “He loves his ease, hates to -offend, and seldom gives any opinion till obliged to do it.... Although -he has as determined a soul as any man, yet it is his constant policy -never to say yes or no decidedly but when he cannot avoid it.” - -John Adams was a man who always said yes or no decidedly, never having, -like Franklin, learned from Socrates that if you wish to convince -people, making them think for themselves is more effective than -bludgeoning them. - -But as he was essentially honest, Adams did not deny that Franklin was -beloved by the French as he would never be: “His name was familiar to -government and people,” he wrote later, “to king, 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 a friend to human -kind.... When they spoke of him they seemed to think he was to restore -the golden age....” - -In one of the many elaborate ceremonies organized in Franklin’s honor, a -crown of laurel was placed on his white hair by the most beautiful of -three hundred women admirers. At another, a walking stick with a gold -head wrought in the form of a cap of liberty was presented to him. A -poem, composed for the occasion, was read. - -The wood of the cane, it said, had been seized on the plains of Marathon -by the Goddess of Liberty before she abandoned Greece. It had been -transported to Switzerland, where the valiant mountaineers fought -against invading Austrians. More recently it had been seen at Trenton, -where Washington defeated the British. By possession of this symbol of -victory, Benjamin Franklin was assured of a place in the “Temple of -Memory.” - -Franklin’s French friends had long been hoping for a meeting between him -and Voltaire, considered the two most enlightened men of the eighteenth -century. In February 1778, after an exile of more than twenty-eight -years, Voltaire returned to spend the last four months of his life in -Paris. With his grandson Temple, Franklin called to pay his respects to -the great philosopher. Voltaire was then eighty-four, lean and -emaciated, but he still had the fiery spirit that had kept all Europe in -an uproar over the major part of his life. He insisted on greeting the -“illustrious and wise Franklin” in English, and held his hand over -Temple’s head in blessing, pronouncing the words “God and Liberty.” - -There was a more publicized meeting in April at the Academy of Sciences. -The audience, seeing both present, clamored to have them introduced to -each other. Obligingly, they stepped forward and bowed to each other. -The spectators were not yet satisfied. They wanted them to embrace each -other in the French manner. Only when Franklin and Voltaire put their -arms around each other and kissed each other’s cheeks did the tumult -subside. - -That year the French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon, who had immortalized -Voltaire in marble, did his bust of Franklin, catching his likeness -better than any other had done. And that Baron Turgot, the French -Minister of Finance, made his most famous epigram about Franklin: “He -snatched the lightning from the sky and the sceptre from the tyrants.” -Vainly Franklin protested that other Americans, “able and brave men,” -deserved credit for the Revolution. - -On September 14, 1778, Congress revoked the commission of three and -elected Franklin sole plenipotentiary to France—America’s first official -ambassador to a foreign land. With only Temple and a clerk to help him -with detail work, he was in actual fact consul-general, consultant on -American affairs, propagandist for America, and, the part which pleased -Franklin least but which he performed expertly, official beggar to the -Court of Versailles for the ever increasing sums of money which Congress -instructed him to procure for their costly war. - -With his other duties, he was director of naval affairs, Judge of the -Admiralty, and in effect if not in name, overseas Secretary of the Navy. -In this capacity in March of 1779 he wrote a “passport” for the Pacific -explorer Captain James Cook, instructing commanders of American ships -that Cook and his crew should be treated as “common friends to mankind” -and allowed to go on their way. The sad news had not reached Europe; a -month before Franklin’s instructions, Cook had been killed by natives on -the Hawaiian Islands. - -Ever since his arrival in France, he had been concerned with the plight -of captured American seamen, whom the English kept in foul prisons and -treated not as prisoners-of-war but as traitors, charged with high -treason and subject to execution. To Lord Stormont, the British -ambassador, he had sent a formal plea requesting the exchange of -American prisoners for English ones, man for man. It was ignored. A -second came back unopened with a note: “The King’s Ambassador receives -no Letters from Rebels but when they come to implore his Majesty’s -Mercy.” - -Through an English friend, David Hartley, Franklin sent money for the -relief of the American prisoners, and generous Englishmen added to the -fund. That was all that could be done until some nine months after the -signing of the treaty with France, when he received reluctant consent -from the London ministry for prisoner exchange. - -There was still the problem of getting sufficient English prisoners for -the exchange. Before the treaty, British seamen on the “prizes” which -American ships brought into French ports had to be set free by maritime -law. With France now officially at war with England, the ban no longer -applied, but there were still far fewer English prisoners in France than -American ones in England. - -In May 1779, as Minister of the United States at the Court of France, -Franklin signed a commission for Captain Stephen Marchant of Boston, on -the privateer, the _Black Prince_, to operate off the north coast of -France. The _Black Prince_ was so named for her sleek lines, her black -sides, and her reputation as one of the swiftest vessels ever to run a -cargo. - -Franklin’s instructions to the captain were brief and explicit. He was -to bring in all the prisoners possible “to relieve so many of our -countrymen from their captivity in England.” He only found out later -that Captain Marchant was a figurehead. The real commander of the _Black -Prince_ was a twenty-five-year-old Irishman named Luke Ryan, with a -dazzling record as a smuggler—an honorable profession in an Ireland -reduced to starvation by repressive English trade regulations. - -The success of the _Black Prince_ was phenomenal—twenty-nine prizes, -including a recapture, in the space of two months and eleven days. -Franklin gave commissions to two sister privateers, the _Black Princess_ -and the _Fearnot_. Their combined efforts produced a total of 114 -British vessels of all descriptions, brought into free ports, burned, -scuttled or ransomed. They created havoc with coastal trade in the -English, Irish and Scotch seas, embarrassed the British Admiralty, -caused marine insurance rates to soar. - -Franklin was proud of his three privateers and must have had a vicarious -thrill in their exploits. His own role in the affair became increasingly -worrisome. Each prize was judged in the local marine court of the port -where it was brought. Sometimes there were delays, resulting in the loss -of perishable cargo and voluble cries of protest from the crews who saw -their prize money diminishing daily. In due time Franklin, as Judge of -the Admiralty, received the bulky and voluminous report, handwritten and -of course in French. It was up to him and Temple to appraise the -contents if the venture was to be kept going. - -Unfortunately, much as the privateers disrupted English shipping, the -number of prisoners was far fewer than Franklin had hoped. Sometimes -there was no room for prisoners on shipboard, or, when there were -captive ships to man, not enough men to guard prisoners. Franklin -proposed that the privateer captains get sea paroles from those they set -free, but the British stubbornly refused to honor the paroles in -prisoner exchange. There were also numerous British seamen who gladly -joined the privateer crews, finding their free life far preferable to -the cruel discipline of the British Navy. - -Aside from his privateers, Franklin pinned his hope on a Scottish-born -American seaman with a colorful past, named John Paul Jones. In 1778, -Jones had captured the _Drake_, the first British warship to surrender -to a Continental vessel. He had come to Brest from America in the -_Ranger_, which had raided English and Scottish coasts, taking seven -prizes. Red tape kept Jones idle for some months after that but at -length he was given an aged and decrepit French forty-gun ship, which he -renamed the _Bonhomme Richard_—the French translation of “Poor Richard.” - -In September 1779, the _Bonhomme Richard_ closed in on the superior -British frigate, the _Serapis_, in a battle which lasted three and a -half hours. When the hull of the _Bonhomme Richard_ was pierced, her -decks ripped, her hold filling with water, and fires destroying her, the -British captain asked if they were ready to surrender. - -“Sir, I have not yet begun to fight,” Jones reportedly replied. - -While his ship was sinking, he and his men boarded the _Serapis_ and -took her captive. - -Exultantly, Franklin prepared his dispatch to Congress, announcing “one -of the most obstinate and bloody conflicts that has happened in this -war.” With even greater pleasure he reported three weeks later that John -Paul Jones was safe in Texel, North Holland, with some 500 British -prisoners! In Paris soon afterward the welcome given the hero of the -_Bonhomme Richard_ rivaled only Franklin’s reception there. - -At home the war was going drearily. Combined American forces failed to -win Savannah from the British. A British expedition took Charleston. The -British General Cornwallis, marching inland, routed General Horatio -Gates. England, now at war with Holland, captured tiny St. Eustatius, -thus cutting off America’s chief West Indian source of supplies. -Benedict Arnold had turned traitor, and the British had moved their army -from Philadelphia to New York. - -The Bache family, who had been living in the country, returned to find -that the officers who had occupied their house had carried off some of -Franklin’s musical instruments, Temple’s school books, and some -electrical apparatus. The portrait of Franklin done by Benjamin Wilson -had also vanished. It turned out that it had been taken by the English -spy Major John André. (It reached England but was later restored to the -White House in Washington in 1906.) - -In the spring of 1781, Franklin received two American visitors at Passy, -young Colonel John Laurens, son of the former Congress president Henry -Laurens, and Thomas Paine. There was another financial crisis in -Congress and they had come to request a loan of a million pounds -sterling each year for the duration. Franklin had foreseen the need and -could tell them he already had a promise of an outright gift of 6 -million livres. Since July 1780, General Rochambeau and 6,000 fully -equipped French regulars were in America, waiting for the auspicious -time to join the conflict. France had its own to protect now. - -The tide turned that year. The valiant General Nathanael Greene (nephew -by marriage of Franklin’s friend, Catherine Ray Greene) together with -Daniel Morgan, “Light-Horse Harry” Lee, and Francis Marion (known as -“The Swamp Fox”) harassed Cornwallis into Virginia, where General -Lafayette, in charge of his first command, forced him onto the peninsula -of Yorktown. To Lafayette’s aid came two armies, the American one led by -Washington, and the French one led by Rochambeau. The siege lasted just -nine days. Cornwallis surrendered on October 18, 1781. The news reached -Franklin at eleven o’clock on the night of November 19, just one month -later. - -The defeat of Cornwallis at Yorktown marked the unofficial end of the -war, though George III refused to believe it. In his disordered mental -state, he could not face the reality of the enormous budget asked from -an empty treasury. Nearly everyone else knew that the former American -colonies were lost to the British Empire forever. - -Franklin wrote Congress offering his resignation, planning that if it -were accepted he would take his grandsons on a tour in Italy and -Germany. Congress had other plans for him. Along with John Adams and -John Jay of New York, he was chosen a commissioner to negotiate the -formal peace with Great Britain. - -“I have never known a peace made, even the most advantageous,” Franklin -wrote John Adams, “that was not censured as inadequate.... I esteem it, -however, an honour.” - -John Jay and his family came to stay at Passy, as the Adams family had -done. Maria Jay, age one and a half years, formed a “singular -attachment” to the ancient philosopher, which he claimed he would never -forget. - -The peace negotiations dragged on month after month, seemingly -interminable. In April 1782, in the midst of them, Franklin was stricken -with a kidney stone, which disabled him the rest of his life. From then -on even the jolting of his carriage over the cobblestone streets was -unbearably painful. He refused either to have an operation or take -drugs. “You may judge that my disease is not very grievous,” he wrote -John Jay, “since I am more afraid of the medicine than the malady.” - -The preliminary Anglo-American peace terms were finally signed on -November 30, 1782, and on September 3, 1783, came the signing of the -Treaty of Paris, in which Great Britain at last acknowledged the -independence of the United States. The achievement of this treaty, by -Franklin with John Adams and John Jay, would be labeled “the greatest -triumph in the history of American diplomacy.” - -“May we never see another war!” wrote Franklin to Josiah Quincy. “For in -my opinion there never was a good war or a bad peace.” - -“The times that tried men’s souls are over,” wrote Thomas Paine in -America. - -Franklin was seventy-seven, sick with gout, dropsy, and half a dozen -minor ailments besides his dreadful stone, but his mind was as keen and -his soul as full of fun as a youth of twenty. No one ever had a more -glorious old age than he was having. - - - - - 16 - A GLORIOUS OLD AGE - - -On August 27, 1783, just a few days before the signing of the peace -treaty with England, a balloon ascension was held at the Champ-de-Mars. -It was the first in Paris; the first in history had taken place near -Lyons in the previous June. For four days preceding the event, the great -balloon of varnished silk had been filling up with hydrogen gas under -the direction of the physicist Jacques-Alexandre-César Charles. Paris -was agog with excitement. Some 50,000 gathered to watch. - -Franklin, who was present, reported that the balloon rose rapidly “till -it entered the clouds, when it seemed to me scarce bigger than an orange -and soon after became invisible.” - -“What good is it?” a skeptic asked. - -“What good is a newborn baby?” Franklin retorted, a remark that went -around the world. - -He saw the first free balloon ascend with human passengers on November -20, at the Château de la Muette in Passy. The passengers, scientist -Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d’Arland, were lifted some 500 feet, -floated over the Seine, and landed in Paris. A few weeks later he -witnessed a balloon soar upwards from the Paris Tuileries, taking its -human cargo to the incredible height of 2,000 feet. - -He could not resist speculating as to what man’s triumph over space -might mean to the future. Would the balloon perhaps become a common -means of transportation? How delightful that would be for one like -himself for whom riding in a carriage had become such agony. But he -could hardly hope for such comfort in his lifetime. - -More to the point was the possibility that the actuality of balloon -flight might convince “sovereigns of the folly of wars”: - - 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 defense 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? - -Not even the wealthiest and most powerful ruler could guard his -dominions against such an air raid. The terrible threat would mean an -end to warfare. So Franklin reasoned, happily unable to peer into the -future. - -Following the Treaty of Paris, Congress had retained his services as -ambassador to France for two years longer. He served unofficially as -United States ambassador for all of Europe, and new honors rained down -on him. He was elected a member of Madrid’s Royal Academy of History, of -Manchester’s Literary and Philosophical Society, of the Academies of -Sciences and Arts in the French towns of Orléans and Lyons. Through -Admiral Lord Richard Howe, a staunch friend still, the British Admiralty -sent him Captain Cook’s _Voyage to the Pacific Ocean_, a tribute to his -instructions to American cruisers to refrain from interfering with the -explorer and his crew. - -His real and solid pleasures came not from such tokens of recognition -but from the circle of good friends he had acquired in his years at -Passy. He was on good terms with the parish priest, the village -tradesmen, and all the children of the town. The Chaumont family, on -whose estate he lived, were deeply devoted to him, including the young -daughter Sophie whom he called “my little wife.” - -He established strong bonds of friendship with his neighbor, the lovely -and talented young Madame Brillon, wife of an elderly treasury official. -For several years he called on her nearly every Wednesday and Saturday, -to play chess or to idle on her terrace in the sun. Sometimes he played -for her on his armonica. - -Once he spent a summer day with Madame Brillon and some other companions -on Moulin-Joli, an island on the Seine. Over the river hovered a swarm -of tiny May flies, known as _ephemera_ since their life span is but a -few hours. As a souvenir of this holiday, he wrote the “Ephemera,” one -of his most charming fables, a delicate satire about the trivia which -make up the thoughts and actions of many human souls during their own -comparatively brief period on earth. - -“Papa,” Madame Brillon called Franklin. After she and her husband left -Passy, she sent him a plaintive note. “How am I going to spend the -Wednesdays and Saturdays?” Might they perhaps be united in paradise? “We -shall live on roast apples only; the music will be made up of Scottish -airs ... everyone will speak the same language; the English will be -neither unjust nor wicked ... ambition, envy, pretensions, jealousy, -prejudices, all these will vanish at the sound of the trumpet.” - -Young and old, French women lavished attention on the American -philosopher. In return, he gave them affection both fatherly and -gallant, told them amusing stories, and showed that combination of -respect for their mental capacities and appreciation of their womanly -charms which had won over Catherine Ray Greene so many years before. - -Among his many close women friends the most celebrated was the elderly -Madame Helvétius, widow of a wealthy landowner and philosopher, who -lived with her two daughters at Auteuil, a village next to Passy, in the -midst of a little park planted with hortensias and rhododendron, and -over-run with cats, dogs, chickens, canaries, pigeons, and wild birds. -“Our Lady of Auteuil,” Franklin called her, while her daughters were -“_les étoiles_,” the stars. - -Her salon was frequented by philosophers, statesmen, poets, scientists, -and mathematicians. Franklin first met her through the French minister -Turgot. When she knew him better she told him she wished she had -welcomed him as she had Voltaire, whom she had greeted at her gate like -a king. - -One of the many scholars Franklin met at her salon was a talented young -doctor named Philippe Pinel. Franklin advised him to come to America -where doctors were badly needed. Pinel was tempted but refused—and -became famous for his courage and wisdom in removing chains from the -insane at the Paris hospitals of Bicêtre and Saltpêtrière. - -While John Adams and his wife Abigail were at Passy, Franklin invited -Madame Helvétius to dinner. The worthy Abigail was horrified when Madame -Helvétius kissed Franklin’s cheeks and forehead in greeting. Even more -shocking in her eyes, the guest held Franklin’s hand at dinner and now -and then let her arm rest on the back of John Adams’ chair. - -“I should have been greatly astonished at this conduct,” Abigail wrote -afterwards, “if the good Doctor had not told me that in this lady I -should see a genuine Frenchwoman, wholly free from affectation or -stiffness of behaviour, and one of the best women in the world. For this -I must take the Doctor’s word; but I should have set her down for a very -bad one.” - -Whatever Abigail Adams thought, there is no doubt of Franklin’s -devotion. Sometime—no one knows just when—he proposed marriage to Madame -Helvétius. She refused him. Perhaps she was too accustomed to her own -way of life to want to make a change. Perhaps she felt that his proposal -was only a form of gallantry. Neither the proposal nor her refusal -interfered with their friendship, which lasted as long as he stayed in -France and by correspondence afterward. - -Since 1777 he had his own private press at Passy and a foundry to cast -his own type. His excuse was that the press was useful with so many -official forms to be prepared, but it was also true that printing was -still in his blood and always would be. - -One of the pamphlets that came off the Passy printing press was -“Information to Those who would Remove to America.” He thought too many -of the wrong people wanted to emigrate to America for the wrong reasons, -and he wanted to correct their misapprehensions. He discouraged artists -and scholars who expected they would receive free transportation, land, -slaves, tools and livestock from a rich but ignorant America. In -America, a man who did not bring his fortune “must work and be -industrious to live.” - -The chief resource of America was cheap land, he pointed out. Farm -laborers were needed. Skilled artisans could make a good living and -“provide for children and old age.” But “those Europeans who have these -or greater advantages at home would do well to stay where they are.” - -To answer those who besieged him with questions about the Indians, he -wrote “Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America,” perhaps the -first fair appraisal of America’s original inhabitants to be printed: - - The Indian men, when young, are hunters and warriors; when old, - counsellors; for all their government is by counsel of the sages; - there is no force, there are no prisons, no officers to compel - obedience or inflict punishment.... The Indian women till the ground, - dress the food, nurse and bring up the children, and preserve and hand - down to posterity the memory of public transactions. These employments - of men and women are accounted natural and honourable. Having few - artificial wants they have abundance of leisure for improvement by - conversation. Our laborious manner of life, compared with theirs, they - esteem slavish and base; and the learning on which we value ourselves - they regard as frivolous and useless.... - -So he continued, by illustration and by example, to show that while -Indian ways and customs were quite different from those of the white -men, there was much to be said for them, and they were by no means -always inferior. In fact, there was much which men who called themselves -civilized could learn by studying the nature of those called savages. - -Some pieces in lighter vein were also run off his press, which Franklin -wrote partly as an exercise in French, partly to entertain himself and -his friends. In one of these bagatelles, as such pieces are known, he -told Parisians of a discovery he had made whereby they could make great -savings in the cost of candles and oil lamps. He had gone to bed one -night, as usual at three or four hours after midnight, and had been -awakened by a sudden noise at six, to find that his room was flooded -with light! His servant had forgotten to close the shutters before he -retired. Looking into his almanac, he learned what few others could -know—that the sun rises early and “_that he gives light as soon as he -rises_.” - -Another of his bagatelles was “Dialogue between Franklin and the Gout,” -in which Gout explains his frequent and unwelcome visits as due simply -to Franklin’s indolence; he plays chess too much and exercises too -little. The “Ephemera” was printed as a bagatelle, and so was “The -Whistle,” an expanded version of the little story he had once told his -son William. - -His intellectual curiosity had not slackened during his years in France. -War or no war, he continued to observe natural phenomenon, write and -reflect on scientific matters, and keep up with the newest discoveries -and inventions. - -He attended meetings of the Royal Society of Medicine, to which he had -been elected in 1777, and of the French Academy of Science. In 1782, he -watched Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier perform an experiment with the gas he -had named oxygen—Joseph Priestley’s “dephlogistated air.” He wrote to -Jan Ingenhousz, a Dutch scientist, about differences between the Leyden -jar and Volta’s new electrophorus, and to Edward Nairne, an English -friend, about the comparative humidity of the air in London, -Philadelphia and Passy. - -To a French friend, Count de Gebelin, he discoursed on the -characteristics of the various Indian languages. When de Gebelin -commented that some Indian words sounded Phoenician, Franklin dived into -archaeological speculations: - - If any Phoenicians arrived in America, I should rather think it was - not by the accident of a storm but in the course of their long and - adventurous voyages; and that they coasted from Denmark and Norway - over to Greenland, and down southward by Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, - etc., to New England; as the Danes themselves certainly did some ages - before Columbus. - -He wrote a paper on the phenomenon of the aurora borealis (the northern -lights) for the French Academy of Science, sent notes to Marie -Antoinette’s physician, Felix Vicq d’Azyr, on the length of time -infection could remain in the body after death, and investigated a story -of some workmen in the Passy quarry who claimed to have found living -toads shut up in solid stone. - -In a letter to another friend, the Abbé Soulavie, he pondered on why -there were coal mines under the sea at Whitehaven and oyster shells in -the Derbyshire mountains—indications of great geological changes in the -past. Was it possible that the surface of the earth was a shell “capable -of being broken and disordered by the violent movements of the fluid on -which it rested?” Admittedly, this was only a guess: “I approve much -more your method of philosophizing, which proceeds upon actual -observations....” - -He still tinkered with inventions, and for his own comfort devised the -first bifocal glasses, so he could see both near and far without -changing his spectacles. - -He was old enough to be serious all the time, but he never could resist -a hoax, even with his scientific friends. To the eminent French -physician Georges Cabanis he confided that in the forests of North -America he had observed a bird which “like the horned screamer or the -horned lapwing, carries two horned tubercles at the joints of the wings. -These two tubercles at the death of the bird become the sprouts of two -vegetable stalks, which grow at first in sucking the juice from its -cadaver and which subsequently attach themselves to the earth in order -to live in the manner of plants and trees.” - -The inspiration for this weird creation of his imagination was perhaps -the “vegetable animal” he thought he saw on the gulf weed he had fished -out of the Gulf Stream at the age of twenty. His friend Cabanis, -suspecting nothing, dutifully reported it in one of his books, taking -only the precaution to note that “in spite of the great veracity of -Franklin, I cite it with a great deal of reserve.” - -What endless marvels the world offered and how much there was to know -about them! One lifetime was not nearly long enough. “The rapid progress -true science now makes occasions my regretting sometimes that I was born -so soon,” he wrote Joseph Priestley after their countries were at peace -once more. “It is impossible to imagine the height to which may be -carried, in a thousand years, the power of man over matter.... O that -moral science were in as fair a way of improvement that men would cease -to be wolves to one another, and that human beings would at length learn -what they now improperly call humanity.” He could not guess that his -fervent cry would still be echoed, in one form or another, more than a -hundred and seventy-five years after his death. - -In 1784, the King of France chose him to serve on a commission of five -to investigate the work of Dr. Franz Anton Mesmer, who claimed to effect -cures through “animal magnetism,”—a universal fluid which flowed to his -patients from the healer, or from some object “magnetized” by the -healer, such as a tree. All fashionable Paris was flocking to Mesmer’s -seances; his following was enormous throughout France. - -With Franklin on this commission served Joseph-Ignace Guillotin (whose -name would survive in the French Revolution’s chief instrument of -execution) and the scientist Lavoisier (whom the guillotine would claim -as a victim). After many months of study, the commission concluded that -“animal magnetism” did not exist, and that Mesmer’s cures were the -result of “imagination.” The importance of imagination in physical -illness was as yet unrecognized. Privately Franklin commented that -Mesmer’s treatments certainly did some good—at least they kept some from -taking injurious drugs. - -On the whole the findings of the commission brought both Mesmer and -mesmerism into disrepute. Indirectly the shadow of its disapproval fell -on a phenomenon first discovered by a Mesmer disciple, the Marquis de -Puysegur—that some persons, in a state of trance and apparently asleep, -are able to obey simple commands. Hypnotism, for many years after de -Puysegur’s observations, was relegated to quacks rather than physicians -and scientists. - -In August of 1784 Thomas Jefferson arrived from America to help -negotiate treaties with European and North African powers. Franklin -introduced him to his French scientific friends and found in his company -the same harmony as when they were both members of the Second -Continental Congress. His last winter in France, Polly Hewson and her -children also joined him at Passy. Mrs. Stevenson, Polly’s mother, had -died in England during the war. Franklin welcomed these members of his -“English family” with joy and affection. - -He still had his two grandsons with him. There had been some objections -from Congress to his making Temple his secretary, on the grounds that he -was the son of a traitor. Franklin had been highly indignant: “Methinks -it is rather some merit that I have rescued a valuable young man from -the danger of being a Tory, and fixed him in honest republican Whig -principles.” - -Yet there was some justification in the fears of Congress. At -twenty-six, Temple was charming, handsome and spoiled. He spent his -evenings at music halls and, wearing red heels, an embroidered coat, and -with an Angora cat on a leash, paraded the boulevards with aristocratic -young friends. Mockingly the Parisians dubbed him “Franklinet.” While -Franklin was trying to kill a clause in the peace treaty conceding -special privileges to Tories, Temple, without his knowledge, wrote to -Lord Shelburne pleading a government post for his Tory father. - -Different as could be was Benjamin Bache, now sixteen, a husky wholesome -youngster much like Franklin at his age. He wanted no more than to be a -printer as his grandfather had been. Franklin taught him how to cast -type, and in April 1785 persuaded the best printer in France to make him -an apprentice. The arrangement was of short duration. - -In May, Franklin at last received permission from Congress to come home. -Jefferson was appointed ambassador to France in his stead. “I am not -replacing Franklin,” Jefferson said loyally. “No one could do that. I am -only his successor.” - -He left Passy on July 12, 1785, traveling to Havre in a royal litter -drawn by mules, which the King had provided for his comfort. His -personal goods—128 boxes in all—went by barge down the Seine. He took -with him Louis XVI’s personal gift—the King’s miniature, set with 408 -diamonds. The whole population of Passy watched him leave, silent except -for occasional outbursts of sobs. - -“All the days of my life I shall remember that a great man, a sage, -wished to be my friend,” wrote Madame Brillon just before his departure. -A farewell note from Madame Helvétius was waiting for him at Havre: “I -see you in your litter, every step taking you further from us, lost to -me and all my friends who love you so much and to whom you leave such -long regrets.” - -He and his grandsons spent four days at Southampton, England. William -Franklin came down from London, where he was now living, to see them, -but the meeting with his father was brief and strained. Then Benjamin -Franklin set off for his eighth crossing of the Atlantic. He knew it -would be his last. - - - - - 17 - THE CLOSING YEARS - - -Never had America given a returning hero a more resounding welcome. -Booming cannons announced his landing on September 14, 1785, at -Philadelphia’s Market Street wharf. Bells rang throughout the city and -the whole town was out to greet him. Cheering crowds lined the street as -his carriage proceeded to his home at Franklin Court, where Sally and -his grandchildren, eight now in all, were waiting for him. Ceremonies in -his honor continued for weeks. - -Old and feeble and almost constantly in pain, he was still not allowed -to relax. On October 11, he was made president of the Supreme Executive -Council of the Pennsylvania Assembly—an Assembly which would never again -have to pay heed to “the proprietors.” On October 29, two weeks later, -he was elected president of Pennsylvania. To avoid the agony of riding -in a carriage, he had a sedan chair built, so he could be carried to -meetings. - -His eightieth birthday, January 6, 1786, was celebrated at the Bunch of -Grapes Tavern by Philadelphia’s now numerous printers. They drank their -first toast to their “venerable printer, philosopher, and statesman.” At -least once in this period George Washington came to dinner with him. One -pleasant afternoon and evening he spent with Thomas Paine, now one of -America’s most distinguished citizens; together they worked on inventing -a “smokeless candle.” For a while, Franklin kept in his garden a model -of an iron bridge which Paine had invented and which attracted droves of -curious visitors. - -He tried vainly to secure a post for Temple, but Congress was still -doubtful about him. Later he bought the young man a farm at Rancocas, -New Jersey. Temple liked farm life so little he spent most of his time -in Philadelphia. For Benjamin Bache he set up a printing press and type -foundry, which the youth managed contentedly until at the age of thirty -an attack of yellow fever brought his life to a premature end. - -In July 1786, an Indian chief of the Wyandots, named Scotosh, came to -Franklin with a message from his people, bringing strings of white -wampum. Franklin received him with the same courtesy due any ambassador. -Following the Indian custom, he waited two days to consider the chief’s -message, then presented more strings of wampum with his reply. - -In the Pennsylvania Assembly, that September, he helped revise the penal -code. No longer were men to be hanged for robbery, arson, or -counterfeiting. By the new act only murder and treason warranted capital -punishment. Branding with a hot iron, flogging, the pillory were all -abolished. Such barbarities did not belong in a new nation. - -He was pleased with signs of progress and quick recovery from war. “Our -working-people are all employed and get high wages, are well fed and -well clad,” he wrote in November. “Buildings in Philadelphia increase -rapidly, besides small towns rising in every quarter of the country. The -laws govern, justice is well administered, and property is as secure as -in any country in the globe.... In short, all among us may be happy who -have happy dispositions; such being necessary to happiness even in -paradise.” - -But all was not yet honey and roses in the new United States, as he soon -discovered. Much trouble had risen because of the lack of power of the -Confederacy. - -Under the Articles of the Confederation, Congress might declare war, but -could not enlist a single soldier. Congress could ask the states for -money, but had no authority to raise a dollar by taxation. It could make -treaties but could not force the states to recognize them. It could not -regulate commerce and each state taxed imports as it wished. Not only -the Confederacy, but all the states issued their own money, resulting in -endless confusion. - -To create a strong central government, the Constitutional Convention -opened on May 25, 1787, at the Philadelphia State House, in the same -room where the Declaration of Independence had been signed. Franklin, -who was the oldest delegate here, as he had been at the Second -Continental Congress, expressed the hope that good would come from the -Convention: “Indeed if it does not do good it must do harm, as it will -show that we have not wisdom enough among us to govern ourselves.” - -There were fifty-five delegates in all, the best minds in America. -George Washington was the natural choice as presiding officer. All that -hot summer they labored on the task of making a workable constitution. - -Franklin did not miss a meeting in the four months. As always, he said -little. When he had a speech to make, he wrote it out in advance and let -James Wilson, or some other delegate, read it for him. He could no -longer stand to deliver an address without pain. In the course of the -sessions he advocated three ideas—a single legislature, a plural -executive, the nonpayment of officers. All three were rejected. He -accepted the defeat without rancor. - -His main role was as a peacemaker. In case of an impasse, as was -inevitable with so many contrary views and opinions, it was invariably -he who suggested a workable compromise. Once, when feelings were taut to -the point of hostility, he moved that the Convention open its sessions -with prayer: - -“I have lived a long time, and the longer I live the more convincing -proofs I see of this truth: that God governs in the affairs of men. And -if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it -probable that an empire can rise without His aid?” - -His motion was received with respect but no action was taken on it. -Perhaps he guessed there would be none. Whether he planned it or not, -his proposal had the effect of cooling hot tempers, and work continued -with less dissension. - -The final day of the Convention was Monday, September 17. The great -document, which was the fruit of their heavy labor, was read by the -secretary. Then James Wilson gave Franklin’s comments: - - I confess that there are several parts of this Constitution which I do - not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them; - for, having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being - obliged by better information or fuller consideration to change my - opinions.... In these sentiments, sir, I agree to this Constitution - with all its faults, if there are such; because I think a general - government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but - what may be a blessing to the people if well administered.... Thus I - consent, sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and - because I am not sure that it is not the best.... - -Then Franklin moved that the Constitution be signed by the delegates as -“done in Convention by the unanimous consent of the states present.” - -While the last delegates were affixing their signature, Franklin’s eyes -were on the president’s chair, on the back of which a sunset—or -sunrise—was painted. To those near him he said, “I have often and often -in the course of the session ... looked at that sun 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.” - -In the year of the Convention, the Massachusetts delegate, Elbridge -Gerry, called on Franklin, bringing a friend named Manasseh Cutler. -Later Cutler wrote down his recollections of this first meeting with the -philosopher-statesman. - -He was sitting hatless under a mulberry tree in his garden, “a short, -fat, trunched old man in a plain Quaker dress, bald pate, and short -white locks.” Present were several men and women, one of whom was Sarah -Bache. When Cutler was introduced, Franklin rose, took him by the hand, -expressed his joy at seeing him, and begged him to be seated by his -side. He spoke in a low voice and his “countenance was open, frank, and -pleasing.” - -Sarah Bache served tea under the tree. She had three of her younger -children with her, who “seemed to be excessively fond of their -grandpapa.” They talked until dark when Franklin took his guests into -his study, “a very large chamber and high-studded.” The walls were lined -with bookshelves and there were more books in four alcoves extending -two-thirds of the length of the room. Cutler guessed rightly that this -was “the largest and by far the best private library in America.” - -Their host showed them a sort of artificial arm—a long pole with prongs -at the end that could be opened or shut with a rope, which he had -devised to take down and put up books on the upper shelves. (Previously -he had used a chair which could be unfolded into a ladder, but now he -was not sufficiently agile.) He had other curiosities in the room, such -as a glass machine for “exhibiting the circulation of the blood in the -arteries and veins of the human body” and his rocking armchair, with a -fan placed over it which he could operate by a small motion of his foot. - -Because Cutler was a botanist, Franklin showed him a precious folio -containing _Systema Vegetabilium_, by Linnaeus, the founder of -systematic botany. Heavy as the folio was, Franklin insisted on lifting -it himself, and to Cutler he expressed regret that he had not in his -youth given more attention to the science of botany. - -They discussed many other matters and Cutler was astonished at -Franklin’s extensive knowledge, “the brightness of his memory, and -clearness and vivacity of all his mental faculties, notwithstanding his -age,” and at the “incessant vein of humour ... which seems as natural -and involuntary as his breathing.” - -But his age was catching up with Benjamin Franklin, as no one realized -better than he. In February 1788, he fell on the stone steps that led -into his garden, bruising himself badly and spraining his wrist, so that -temporarily he could not even write to his friends. The accident was -followed by a severe attack of his kidney stone ailment. He was still -confined to bed when Pennsylvania celebrated gloriously its twelfth -Fourth of July. The Pennsylvania Council held meetings at his house -during his illness, and in October, Thomas Mifflin, a veteran of the -Revolutionary War, was elected to succeed him. - -To quiet the anxiety of his sister in Boston, Jane Mecom, he wrote, -“There are in life real evils enough, and it is a folly to afflict -ourselves with imaginary ones.... As to the pain I suffer, about which -you make yourself so unhappy, it is, when compared with the long life I -have enjoyed of health and ease, but a trifle.” - -He made his will that summer of 1788. In a codicil, he bequeathed to “my -friend, and the friend of mankind, General Washington,” the walking -stick with the gold head in the shape of a cap of liberty, which had -been given him in France as a symbol of victory. - -Congress was now allotting many pensions and bonuses to patriots who had -sacrificed their personal interests to serve in the cause of freedom. -Franklin had hoped that his many years of foreign service might be -thought worthy of a grant of a tract of land in the West “which might -have been of some use and some honour to my posterity.” This was never -given him. - -Arthur Lee, who had been notably jealous of Franklin and who had written -him vitriolic letters in France accusing him of leaving him out of -things, was a member of the Treasury Board. He had never forgotten or -forgiven Franklin for being the better man. John Adams was finding ears -to listen to his long-standing disapproval of Franklin’s “frivolity.” He -was being criticized for being too fond of France, as he had once been -censored for his attachment to England, and especially for accepting as -a gift the King of France’s miniature. There was also a matter of a -million livres given by France to the dummy importing concern, Hortalez -and Company, which was unaccounted for. Franklin was condemned by -innuendo, though time would clear him completely. - -He was sorrowful about this turn of affairs but he blamed nobody. He -knew something of the “nature of such changeable assemblies,” he wrote a -friend, “and how little successors are informed of services that have -been rendered to the corps before their admission.” - -Once more he had turned to working on his _Autobiography_, commenced -years before at the Shipley home in England. For six months off and on -he kept at it, even while his kidney stone was causing him such acute -pain he had to resort to opium. He brought his life story up to the time -of his first meetings with the Penn brothers in England. It remained -unfinished. - -By the summer of 1789 he was so emaciated that, in his words, “little -remains of me but a skeleton covered with a skin,” and philosophic as -always, commented, “In this world, nothing can be said to be certain -except death and taxes,” tossing off another epigram that would survive. - -The long fermenting discontent of the French working classes exploded in -the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789. Franklin seems not to -have realized the extent of the misery in France during his stay there. -Most of his intimate friends had been wealthy, or at least well-to-do. -His own life had been so idyllic he had come to think of his foster -country almost as a utopia. Moreover, he was deeply grateful to the -French King for his generosity to America. - -But his belief in the rights of the common man was firm and if the -people of France felt they needed a change, he was with them. When -rumors of their Revolution reached him, he wrote, “Disagreeable -circumstances might attend the convulsions in France ... but if by the -struggle she obtains and secures for her nation its future liberty, and -a good constitution, a few years’ enjoyment of those blessings will -amply repair all the damages their acquisition may have occasioned.” - -Since 1787 he had been president of the Pennsylvania Society for -Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, founded by the Quakers, and his -signature was on a memorial which the society sent to Congress on -February 12, 1790, advocating the abolition of slavery. Congress -dismissed the memorial on the grounds that it had no authority to -interfere in the internal affairs of the states. Whereupon Franklin -promptly published an essay, “On the Slave Trade,” in which a mythical -Algerian, Sidi Mehemet Ibrahim, used the same arguments as the Negro -slave owners to defend his right to Christian slaves! The piece showed -the same barbs of wit and satire as his earlier writings. His campaign -against slavery was his last public activity. - -His pain now kept him bedridden, but he did some work, using Benjamin -Bache as his secretary, and he found the energy to listen to his -nine-year-old granddaughter Deborah recite lessons from her Webster -spelling book. In March, Thomas Jefferson, on his way to accept his post -as Secretary of State under President George Washington, came to see -him, and on April 8, he wrote Jefferson his last letter, a clear account -of the map which he and the other peace commissioners used in fixing the -boundary between Maine and Nova Scotia. - -He was now running a high temperature. Breathing became so difficult -that he nearly suffocated. When, briefly, he felt a little better, he -rose from his bed, begging that it might be made up fresh for him so he -could die in a decent manner. - -His daughter Sally told him she hoped he would recover and live many -years longer. - -“I hope not,” he said calmly. - -They put him back to bed and his physician advised him to change his -position so he could breathe more easily. - -“A dying man can do nothing easy,” he commented. - -Soon afterwards he fell in a coma. Temple and Benjamin Bache, his -grandsons, were alone with him when, on April 17, 1790, at the age of -eighty-four and three months, the end came. - -His death brought an abrupt halt to the petty recriminations that had -saddened his last months. In Philadelphia, the city that had grown up -with him and because of him, muffled bells tolled, and flags on the -ships in the harbor hung at half mast. Some 20,000 attended his funeral, -the greatest number the city had ever seen gathered in one spot. As he -was lowered into his grave in the Christ Church burying ground beside -his wife, a company of militia artillery fired funeral guns in honor of -the man who had organized Pennsylvania’s first militia. - -In New York, by a motion passed unanimously, the United States House of -Representatives voted to wear mourning for a month. Neither the Senate -nor the Executive Council followed the example of the House. Ironically, -the man chosen to pronounce his funeral eulogy at the Lutheran German -Church in Philadelphia was William Smith, his ancient enemy. Although -Smith did not do him justice, the crowd before the pulpit sobbed openly. - -But it was in France, his adopted country, where the expressions of -grief and loss were most tumultuous. The National Assembly proclaimed a -period of three months of national mourning for the “benefactor and hero -of humanity.” “Antiquity would have raised altars to this mighty -genius,” cried the revolutionary leader Mirabeau. - -Splendid orations in his honor were delivered by the Jacobins, the -Friends of the Constitution, the Academy of Science, the Royal Society -of Medicine, the National Guard, the Masonic lodges, the printers of -France, and uncounted other societies. All over the country, women wept -for him. It is said that one enterprising businessman became rich by -selling statuettes of him, made from the stones of the Bastille. - -Franklin’s contributions to his country, to science, to better -understanding between nations and peoples were immense. His maxims on -thrift and moral virtues have been extolled to generations of school -children. His wit and wisdom have added to the world’s riches. He was -many men in one—statesman, scientist, inventor, writer, humorist, -philosopher, and a friend of humanity who shared himself with all around -him. - -“Who that know and love you can bear the thoughts of surviving you in -this gloomy world?” cried out Jane Mecom, his beloved sister, shortly -before his death. - -Posterity would provide her answer. Because Benjamin Franklin lived and -enjoyed life, the world would be a little less gloomy and a little more -pleasant for all who came after him. - - - - - SUGGESTED READING - - -Aldrich, Alfred Owen, _Franklin and His French Contemporaries_. New -York, New York University Press, 1957. - -_The American Heritage Book of the Revolution._ By the Editors of -American Heritage. New York, Simon & Schuster, 1958. - -Augur, Helen, _The Secret War of Independence_. New York, Duell, Sloan -and Pearce, 1955. - -Burt, Struthers, _Philadelphia Holy Experiment_. New York, Doubleday & -Company, Inc., 1945. - -Clark, William Bell, _Ben Franklin’s Privateers_. Baton Rouge, La., -Louisiana State University Press, 1956. - -Fäy, Bernard, _Franklin, the Apostle of Modern Times_. Boston, Little, -Brown, and Company, 1929. - -Ford, Paul Leicester, _The Many-Sided Franklin_. New York, The Century -Company, 1899. - -_Franklin’s Wit & Folly—the Bagatelles_, edited by Richard E. Amacher. -New Brunswick, N.J., Rutgers University Press, 1953. - -_A Benjamin Franklin Reader_, edited by Nathan G. Goodman. New York, -Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1945. - -_Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiographical Writings_, selected and edited by -Carl Van Doren. New York, The Viking Press, 1945. - -_The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin_, with postcript by Richard B. -Morris. New York, The Pocket Library, 1954. - -Van Doren, Carl, _Benjamin Franklin_. New York, The Viking Press, 1938. - -Van Doren, Carl, _Jane Mecom_. New York, The Viking Press, 1950. - - - - - INDEX - - - A - _Abridgement of the Book of Common Prayer_, 108 - Adams, Abigail, 126, 155, 168-69 - Adams, John, 126, 138, 140, 155-56, 163, 168-69, 184 - Adams, John Quincy, 155 - Adams, Matthew, 13 - Adams, Samuel, 113 - Addison, Joseph, 14 - Aix-la-Chapelle, Treaty of, 47 - Albany, New York, 64 - Alibard, Thomas François d’, 58, 103 - American Philosophical Society, 45, 56 - André, Major John, 162 - Animal magnetism, 173-74 - Anton, Franz, 173 - Ants, experiment with, 57-58 - Arland, Marquis d’, 165-66 - Armonica, invention of the, 81 - Arnold, General Benedict, 136-37, 161 - Articles of Confederation, 179 - Auteuil, France, 168 - _Autobiography_ of Benjamin Franklin, 34, 108, 141, 184 - Azyr, Felix Vicq d’, 172 - - - B - Bache, Benjamin Franklin (Benjamin’s grandson), 107, 123, 142, - 148, 155, 175, 176, 178, 185, 186 - Bache, Deborah (Benjamin’s granddaughter), 185 - Bache, Richard (Benjamin’s son-in-law), 101, 106, 119, 123, 125, - 141, 161 - Bache, Sarah Franklin (Benjamin’s daughter), 44, 78, 84, 85, 90, - 95, 99, 101, 123, 147, 151, 177, 181, 182, 186 - Bache, William (Benjamin’s grandson), 123 - Balloon ascensions, 165-66 - Bancroft, Edward, 153 - Bathurst, Lord and Lady, 105 - Beaumarchais, Caron de, 145, 152 - Beethoven, Ludwig von, 81 - Belgium, 81 - _Berkshire_, ship, 26 - Bermuda, 127-28 - Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 69 - _Black Prince_, privateer, 159 - _Black Princess_, privateer, 159 - Bond, Dr. Thomas, 56-57 - _Bonhomme Richard_, privateer, 160-61 - Bonvouloir, Achard de, 134, 135 - Boston, Massachusetts, 9-17, 23, 40, 49, 104, 105, 111-13, 115, - 119, 123, 126, 139 - Boston City Council, 16 - Boston _Gazette_, 13 - Boston Massacre, 105 - Boston Tea Party, 115, 119 - Boswell, James, 101 - Braddock, General Edward, 65-66, 70, 71 - Bradford, Andrew, 17, 19, 32, 33, 35 - Bradford, William, 17 - Brillon, Madame, 167-68, 176 - British Royal Society, 25, 45, 51, 58, 59, 60, 78, 91, 100, 150, - 151, 171 - Brooklyn Heights, Battle of, 139 - Bruere, James, 127, 128 - Brussels, Holland, 81 - Buffon, Count Georges Louis, 58 - Bunker Hill, Battle of, 124 - Burgesses, Virginia House of, 94 - Burgoyne, General John, 152 - Burke, Edmund, 96, 117 - Burlington, New Jersey, 19, 48, 57 - - - C - Cabanis, Georges, 172-73 - Calgagnia, Jean-François, 51 - Canada, 61, 136-37, 152 - Canton, John, 59, 78 - Carlisle, Pennsylvania, 62 - Charles, Jacques-Alexandre-César, 165 - Charles II, King, 20 - Charleston, South Carolina, 40 - Chaumont, Le Ray de, 147, 155 - Chaumont, Sophie de, 167 - Christian VII, King, 105 - Collins (Benjamin’s friend), 17 - Collinson, Peter, 51, 53, 55, 58, 59, 74 - “Common Sense,” 135-36, 137, 147 - Concord, Battle of, 123-24 - Constitutional Convention, 179-81 - Continental Congress, _see_ First Continental Congress, Second - Continental Congress - Continental Navy, 129; - _see also_ Privateers - Cook, Captain James, 158, 167 - Cornwallis, General Charles, 161, 162 - _Craven Street Gazette_, 107 - Cunaeus, 50 - Cushing, Thomas, 112, 113, 118 - Cutler, Manasseh, 181-82 - - - D - Dartmouth, Lord, 96, 106, 117 - Davies, Marianne, 81 - Deane, Silas, 141, 144-45, 152, 153, 155 - Declaration of Independence, 137-39, 147 - Declaration of Rights and Grievances, 120 - Deffand, Marquise du, 145-46 - De Lor, 58 - Denham, Thomas, 24, 26, 28 - Denny, William, 71, 80 - “Dialogue between Franklin and the Gout,” 171 - Dickinson, John, 133 - Dinwiddie, Robert, 64 - “Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain, A,” - 25 - _Drake_, H.M.S., 160 - Dublin, Ireland, 105 - Dubourg, Barbeu, 110, 133, 144 - Du Fay, Charles François, 49 - Dumas, Charles, 133 - Dunning, John, 117 - - - E - Easton, Pennsylvania, 69 - “Edict by the King of Prussia,” 114-15 - Edwards, Jonathan, 55 - Electricity, 49-56, 58-60, 100 - Empedocles, 54 - England, 24-26, 47, 61, 74-83, 86, 91-99, 100-10, 111-21, 126, - 150-51, 152-53, 158-59, 161 - “Ephemera,” 167, 171 - “Experiments and Observations in Electricity, Made at - Philadelphia, in America,” 58 - - - F - _Fearnot_, privateer, 159 - First Continental Congress, 119, 120 - Fisher, Daniel, 68 - Forbes, Brigadier General, 71 - Fort Duquesne, 65, 66, 70-71 - Fothergill, Dr. John, 58, 77, 89 - Fox, Charles James, 150 - France and the French, 47, 61, 64, 65, 67, 82, 93, 103, 126, - 133-35, 143-54, 157-64, 165-76, 184-85, 187 - Franklin, Abiah (Benjamin’s mother), 9, 40 - Franklin, Benjamin, agricultural interests, 57; - ambassador to France, 158-63, 166-76; - birth, 9; - book publisher, 42; - boyhood, 9-17; - Braddock and, 65-67; - children, 38, 44; - civic improvements suggested by, 46-47, 56-57; - clerk to Pennsylvania Assembly, 41; - commissioner to France, 141, 143-54; - continental trips, 81, 101, 103-04; - courtship, 20, 34, 169; - death, 186; - Declaration of Independence and, 137-38; - delegate to Constitutional Convention, 179-81; - delegate to Second Continental Congress, 124-31, 132-41; - education, 10, 40; - educational proposals, 45-46; - electrical experiments, 51-56, 58-60, 100; - England visited by, 24-26, 74-83, 91-121; - founder of American Philosophical Society, 44-45; - France visited by, 103; - friendships in England, 100-10; - funeral of, 186; - honors, 60, 79, 81, 166-67, 177, 186-87; - Hutchinson letters and, 112-13, 115-18; - illnesses, 77-78, 93, 107, 137, 163, 164, 171, 183, 184, - 185; - inventions, 11, 43-44, 45, 80-81, 178; - journey to Philadelphia, 18-19; - library for public established by, 34-35; - marriage, 34; - Masonic leader, 35, 56; - meeting with Richard Howe, 140-41; - military career, 68-71; - musical interests, 10, 81; - old age, 166-76, 177-86; - peace negotiations with England, 163; - Penn family and, 76-77, 80, 89-90, 91-92; - Pennsylvania Hospital established by, 57; - personal appearance, 11, 20, 42-43, 75, 111, 143-44, 153, - 181-82; - postmaster-general of the colonies, 63, 118, 125; - postmaster of Philadelphia, 41; - printer in Philadelphia, 19-24, 29-30, 31-37, 40, 42, 47; - printer’s apprentice, 12-17; - publisher of the Courant in Boston, 16; - religious beliefs, 35, 180; - retirement, 47-48; - scientific interests, 26-27, 33, 49, 51-56, 57-60, 78, 100, - 108-10, 121-22, 171-74, 182; - Stamp Act and, 92-99; - summoned before King’s Privy Council, 116-17; - vegetarian diet, 14, 18; - verse-making, 13-14, 43; - virtues, thirteen, 38-40, 41; - Voltaire and, 157; - will of, 183 - Franklin, Benjamin (Benjamin’s uncle), 10 - Franklin, Deborah Read (Benjamin’s wife), 20, 24, 25, 28, 34, - 37, 43-44, 68, 69-70, 71, 74-75, 78, 84, 90, 95, 99, - 101, 105, 107, 121 - Franklin, Elizabeth (William’s wife), 85 - Franklin, Francis Folger (Benjamin’s son), 38, 41, 44 - Franklin, James (Benjamin’s brother), 12-13, 14, 15, 16-17, 23, - 28, 40-41 - Franklin, Jane, _see_ Mecom, Jane Franklin - Franklin, John (Benjamin’s brother), 42, 63 - Franklin, Josiah (Benjamin’s father), 9, 10, 11-12, 14, 23, 40, - 42, 105 - Franklin, Lydia (Benjamin’s sister), 9 - Franklin, Peter (Benjamin’s brother), 42, 63 - Franklin, Sally (Benjamin’s cousin), 107 - Franklin, Sarah (Sally), _see_ Bache, Sarah Franklin - Franklin, William (Benjamin’s son), 38, 44, 47, 59, 63, 65, 68, - 71, 77-78, 81-83, 85, 95, 108, 119, 128, 139, 176 - Franklin, William Temple (Benjamin’s grandson), 107, 111, 121, - 123, 128, 139, 141, 148, 150, 152, 157, 158, 160, 171, - 175, 176, 178, 186 - Franklin Stove, 44, 45, 90 - Frederick the Great, 114 - Freedom of the press, 17, 35 - Freemasonry, 35 - French, Colonel, 21-22, 24 - French and Indian Wars, 65, 86 - French Academy of Sciences, 157, 171, 172 - French Revolution, 184-85 - French Royal Academy, 107 - - - G - Gage, General Thomas, 115 - Galloway, Joseph, 89, 141 - Gates, General Horatio, 161 - Gebelin, Count de, 171-72 - George III, King, 81, 92, 93, 101, 104, 118, 120, 124, 132, 150, - 151, 162 - Gérard, Conrad-Alexandre, 152, 153 - German Royal Academy of Sciences, 101 - Germantown, Pennsylvania, 88 - Gerry, Elbridge, 181 - Gibbon, Edward, 148 - Glover, John, 139 - Gnadenhuetten, Pennsylvania, 68, 69 - Göttingen, Germany, 101 - Greene, Catherine Ray, 67, 85-86, 162, 168 - Greene, General Nathanael, 162 - Greene, William, 67, 86 - Grenville, Lord George, 75-76, 92, 93, 94, 95, 97 - Gruet, M., 144 - Guillotin, Joseph-Ignace, 174 - Gulf Stream, 121-22 - - - H - Hadley, John, 78 - Hall, David, 47 - Hamilton, Andrew, 32 - Hamilton, James, 62, 69 - Hancock, John, 138 - Harrison, Benjamin, 130, 133 - Hartley, David, 158 - Havre, France, 175, 176 - Harvard College, 10, 15, 45, 60 - Hell Fire Club, 12 - Helvétius, Madame, 168-69, 176 - Henry, Patrick, 94 - Hessians, 139, 148 - Hewitt, James, 97 - Hewson, Polly Stevenson, 75, 85, 91, 103, 107, 118, 174 - Hewson, William, 107, 118 - Hillsborough, Earl of, 104, 106, 117 - Holland, 81, 161 - Holmes, Robert, 21, 22 - Hortalez and Company, 144-45, 146, 184 - Houdon, Jean-Antoine, 157 - Howe, Admiral Lord Richard, 120, 139-40, 167 - Howe, General Sir William, 123, 124, 126, 139, 151 - Hughes, John, 93, 94 - Hume, David, 79 - Hunter, William, 63 - Hutchinson, Thomas, 112, 113, 116 - Hutchinson Letters, 112-13, 115-18 - Hypnotism, 174 - - - I - Indians, American, 61-62, 64, 65, 67, 68, 71, 86-88, 125, 170, - 171-72, 178 - “Information to Those who would Remove to America,” 169-70 - Ingenhousz, Jan, 171 - Ingersoll, Jared, 93, 95 - Insurance company, 57 - Ireland, 105 - - - J - Jay, John, 133, 163 - Jay, Maria 163 - Jefferson, Thomas, 124, 138, 141, 174, 175, 185-86 - Johnson, Samuel, 101 - Johnson, Thomas, 133 - Jones, John Paul, 160-61 - Junto, the, 30-31, 34, 43, 46, 52, 88, 123 - - - K - Kames, Lord Henry Home, 79, 89, 95, 102 - Keimer, Samuel, 19-20, 21, 22, 24, 29, 33 - Keith, Sir William, 21-22, 23, 24, 31, 71 - _King of Prussia_, ship, 91 - Kinnersley, Ebenezer, 52-53 - Kleist, E. C. von, 50 - Knox, Henry, 126 - - - L - _Lady Catherine_, ship, 127, 128 - Lafayette, Marquis de, 150, 162 - Laurens, Henry, 162 - Laurens, Colonel John, 162 - Lavoisier, Antoine-Laurent, 171, 174 - Le Despencer, Lord, 108, 114, 117 - Lee, Arthur, 141, 145, 153, 155, 183 - Lee, “Light-Horse Harry,” 162 - Lee, Richard Henry, 137 - _Letters on Philosophical Subjects_, 110 - Lexington, Battle of, 123 - Leyden jar, 50-51, 81, 171 - _Lighthouse Tragedy, The_, 13 - Lightning rods, 55-56, 58, 60, 90, 150-51 - Linnaeus, 182 - Livingston, Robert, 138 - London, England, 24-26, 74 - London _Journal_, 16 - London _Spectator_, 14 - Lorraine, Prince of, 81 - Loudon, Lord, 71 - Louis XV, King, 51, 59, 103-04, 105 - Louis XVI, King, 146, 153, 154, 173, 175, 185 - Lynch, Thomas, 130 - - - M - Marchant, Captain Stephen, 159 - Marie Antoinette, Queen, 81, 154 - Marion, Francis, 162 - Massachusetts Assembly, 104, 112, 113, 117, 118 - Massachusetts Committee of Safety, 123 - Mather, Cotton, 12 - Mecom, Edward, 40 - Mecom, Jane Franklin (Benjamin’s daughter), 9, 10, 40, 130-31, - 183, 187 - Meredith, Hugh, 29-30, 31-32 - Mesmer, Dr., 174 - Mifflin, Thomas, 183 - Militia, Pennsylvania, 47, 68-71, 88, 125 - Minutemen, 123-24 - Mirabeau, Count de, 187 - Montgomery, General Richard, 136 - Montreal, Canada, 136, 137 - Moravians, 68, 69, 86 - Morgan, Daniel, 162 - Morris, Robert, 128-29 - Morris, Robert Hunter, 68, 70-71 - Mozart, Wolfgang, 81 - Musschenbroek, Pieter van, 50, 81 - - - N - Nairne, Edward, 171 - Nantes, France, 143-44 - “Narrative of the Late Massacres in Lancaster County,” 87 - “Nature and Necessity of Paper Money, The,” 32 - New Castle, Pennsylvania, 47 - _New England Courant_, 13, 15, 16 - Newport, Rhode Island, 40, 53 - Newton, Sir Isaac, 25 - New York City, 17, 71, 137, 186-87 - Nollet, Abbé Jean-Antoine, 51 - North, Lord, 104, 125 - Northwest Passage, search for, 57 - - - O - Oliver, Andrew, 112, 113, 116 - “On the Slave Trade,” 185 - Oxford University, 81 - - - P - Paine, Thomas, 119, 135-36, 138, 147, 162, 164, 178 - Palmer (London printer), 25 - Paper currency, 32 - Paris, Ferdinand John, 77 - Paris, France, 144, 161, 165 - Paris, Treaty of (1763), 86 - Paris, Treaty of (1783), 163 - Passy, France, 151, 152, 155, 162, 163, 165, 167-69, 172, 175-76 - Paxton Boys, 86-87, 88-89 - Peabody, Mrs., 14 - Penal code revision, 178 - Penn, John, 76, 87, 88, 89, 90 - Penn, Richard, 76 - Penn, Thomas, 61, 62, 68, 70, 76-77, 89 - Penn, William, 20, 21, 61, 62, 76, 87, 110 - Pennsylvania Academy, 46, 79, 139 - Pennsylvania Assembly, 32, 41, 47, 56, 65, 66, 67, 68, 70, 76, - 79, 80, 85, 87, 89, 99, 125, 177, 178 - _Pennsylvania Gazette_, 33, 35-36, 41, 42, 60, 64 - Pennsylvania Hospital, 57 - _Pennsylvania Magazine_, 135 - _Pennsylvania Packet_, ship, 121 - Perth Amboy, New Jersey, 19 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 18, 19, 20-21, 26, 27, 32, 46-47, - 87, 110, 123, 125, 177, 179, 186 - Philadelphia City Council, 56 - _Philadelphia Gazette_, 56 - _Pilgrim’s Progress_, 10 - Pinel, Philippe, 168 - Pitt, William (Lord Chatham), 80, 101-02, 104, 120 - “Plain Truth,” 47 - _Plutarch’s Lives_, 10 - Police force, Philadelphia, 46 - _Poor Richard’ s Almanack_, 36-37, 42, 56, 60, 73-74 - Portsmouth, England, 109 - Pratt, Charles, 77, 80 - Priestley, Joseph, 100, 117, 118, 121, 131, 171, 173 - Pringle, Sir John, 78, 100-01, 103-04, 150, 151 - Privateers, 159-61 - “Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge Among British - Plantations in North America,” 44-45 - “Proposal Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania,” - 45-46 - _Public Advertiser_, London, 113, 116 - Puysegur, Marquis de, 174 - Pyrmont, Germany, 101 - - - Q - Quebec, Canada, 136 - Queensberry, Duke of, 117 - Quincy, Josiah, 136, 163-64 - - - R - Ralph, James, 21, 24, 25 - Rancocas, New Jersey, 178 - _Ranger_, privateer, 160 - Raspe, Rudolf Erich, 101 - Ray, Catherine, _see_ Greene, Catherine Ray - Read, Deborah, _see_ Franklin, Deborah Read - “Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America,” 170 - _Reprisal_, sloop, 142, 143 - Revere, Paul, 123 - Revolutionary War, 123-31, 132-42, 147, 148, 149-50, 151-52, - 157, 158-63 - Rochambeau, General, 162 - Rockingham, Marquis of, 94, 96, 101, 150 - Rozier, Pilâtre de, 165 - “Rules by Which a Great Empire may be Reduced to a Small One,” - 113-14, 115 - Rush, Dr. Benjamin, 57 - Rutledge, Edward, 140 - Ryan, Luke, 159 - - - S - St. Andrews University, 79 - St. Eustatius, West Indies, 129, 161 - St. George, Bermuda, 127 - Sandwich, Earl of, 117 - Saratoga, Battle of, 152 - _Savannah Pacquet_, ship, 127, 128 - Scotland, 79 - Scotosh, Chief, 178 - Second Continental Congress, 124-30, 132-41, 151, 157-58, 161, - 163, 166, 174, 175, 178, 179, 183, 185 - _Serapis_, H.M.S., 161 - Shelburne, Earl of, 103, 104, 108, 175 - Sherman, Roger, 138 - Shipley, Jonathan, 107-08 - Shipley, Kitty, 111 - Shirley, Governor, 67 - Six Nations, 62, 64, 87 - Slaves and slavery, 9, 16, 36, 75, 138, 185 - Sloane, Sir Hans, 25 - Smallpox epidemics, 13, 41, 86 - Smith, Adam, 79 - Smith, William, 79, 84, 187 - Socrates, 14-15, 20 - Sons of Liberty, 94 - Soulavie, Abbé, 172 - Southampton, England, 176 - Spain, 47, 126, 152 - Spencer, Dr. Adam, 49 - Stamp Act, 92-99, 102 - Steele, Richard, 14 - Steuben, Baron von, 150 - Stevenson, Margaret, 75, 77, 91, 99, 107, 174 - Stevenson, Polly, _see_ Hewson, Polly Stevenson - Storage battery, 52-53 - Stormont, Lord, 147, 148, 158 - Strahan, William, 74, 132-33 - Sullivan, General John, 140 - Swaine, Captain Charles, 57 - Swift, Jonathan, 26 - Synge, Philip, 52 - - - T - Temple, John, 115-16, 117 - Townshend, Charles, 102, 104 - Townshend Acts, 102, 104 - Trenton, Battle of, 148 - Tryon, Mr., 14, 18 - Tucker, Colonel Henry, 127 - Turgot, Baron, 157, 168 - - - U - Union Fire Company of Philadelphia, 47 - _Universal Instructor in All Arts and Science, and Pennsylvania - Gazette_, 33 - - - V - Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, 150 - Vergennes, Count Charles Gravier de, 134, 135, 145, 146, 151, - 152, 153, 154 - Versailles, France, 104, 145, 154 - Virginia Resolves, 94 - Voltaire, 157, 168 - - - W - Walking Purchase, the, 61-62 - Warwick, Rhode Island, 130 - Washington, General George, 64, 65, 66, 71, 124, 126, 130, 135, - 137, 139, 148, 150, 162, 178, 179, 183, 185 - Watt (London printer), 25 - “Way to Wealth, The,” 74, 110, 147 - Wedderburn, Alexander, 117-18 - Wentworth, Paul, 152-53 - Whately, William, 115, 116, 117 - Whig Club, 80 - “Whistle, The,” 171 - Whitehead, Paul, 114-15 - William and Mary College, 45, 60 - Williamsburg, Virginia, 45, 94 - Wilson, Benjamin, 150, 162 - Wilson, James, 180 - Wygate (Benjamin’s London friend), 25-26 - Wyndham, Sir William, 26 - - - X - Xenophon’s _Memorabilia_, 14 - - - Y - Yale College, 45, 60 - Yorke, Charles, 77, 80 - Yorktown, Battle of, 162 - - - Z - Zenger, Peter, 17 - - - - - THE _Lives to Remember_ SERIES - - -Lives To Remember is a series of concise biographies introducing the -world’s great men and women. - - HELEN KELLER - by J. W. and Anne Tibble - - NOBODY STOPS CUSHING - by Frank Cetin - - ISAAC NEWTON - by Patrick Moore - - FRIDTJOF NANSEN - Arctic Explorer - by Francis Noel-Baker - - DOUGLAS MacARTHUR - by Alfred Steinberg - - ELEANOR ROOSEVELT - by Alfred Steinberg - - WOODROW WILSON - by Alfred Steinberg - - DOROTHEA LYNDE DIX - by Gertrude Norman - - MADAME CURIE - by Robin McKown - - ALBERT EINSTEIN - by Arthur Beckhard - - ABRAHAM LINCOLN - by Manuel Komroff - - CHARLES STEINMETZ - by Henry Thomas - - DANIEL WEBSTER - by Alfred Steinberg - - ADMIRAL RICHARD E. BYRD - by Alfred Steinberg - - THE WRIGHT BROTHERS - by Henry Thomas - - GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE - by Henry Thomas - - ULYSSES S. GRANT - by Henry Thomas - - FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT - by Henry Thomas - - BILLY MITCHELL - by Arch Whitehouse - - GEORGE GERSHWIN - by Edward Jablonski - - THOMAS PAINE - by Robin McKown - - JOHN MARSHALL - by Alfred Steinberg - - ALEXANDER HAMILTON - by William Wise - - BENJAMIN FRANKLIN - by Robin McKown - - HARRY S. TRUMAN - by Alfred Steinberg - - JOHN J. PERSHING - by Arch Whitehouse - - THADDEUS LOWE - by Lydel Sims - - SOCRATES - by Robert Silverberg - - HARRIET BEECHER STOWE - by Winifred E. Wise - - PUTNAM - GUARANTEED BINDING - Washable - Colorfast - GUARANTEED FOR THE LIFE OF THE SHEETS - - - Recent titles in the LIVES TO REMEMBER series include: - - ALEXANDER HAMILTON _by William Wise_ - JOHN MARSHALL _by Alfred Steinberg_ - THOMAS PAINE _by Robin McKown_ - GEORGE GERSHWIN _by Edward Jablonski_ - BILLY MITCHELL _by Arch Whitehouse_ - FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT _by Henry Thomas_ - ULYSSES S. GRANT _by Henry Thomas_ - WOODROW WILSON _by Alfred Steinberg_ - DOUGLAS MacARTHUR _by Alfred Steinberg_ - - - THE AUTHOR - -Robin McKown was born in Denver and attended the University of Colorado, -Northwestern University, and the University of Illinois. She sold her -first one-act play to a literary magazine while she was still in -college, and later won a drama prize at the University of Colorado. She -has worked in public relations, with a literary agency, and prepared -radio scripts. Mrs. McKown is the author of _Thomas Paine_ and _Marie -Curie_, both in the Lives to Remember series, as well as _Publicity -Girl_ and _Foreign Service Girl_. She makes her home in New York City. - - - _Other Books by Robin McKown_ - - THOMAS PAINE - MARIE CURIE - FOREIGN SERVICE GIRL - PUBLICITY GIRL - ROOSEVELT’S AMERICA - WASHINGTON’S AMERICA - THE FABULOUS ISOTOPES - GIANT OF THE ATOM: _Ernest Rutherford_ - SHE LIVED FOR SCIENCE: _Irène Joliot-Curie_ - JANINE - THE ORDEAL OF ANNE DEVLIN - AUTHOR’S AGENT - PAINTER OF THE WILD WEST: _Frederick Remington_ - PIONEERS IN MENTAL HEALTH - - - BENJAMIN FRANKLIN - -Few men have more claims to greatness than Benjamin Franklin. He was in -his long lifetime, writer, editor and publisher, scientist and inventor, -propagandist for the cause of the American colonies, statesman, -diplomat. He was a wit and a humorist, a loyal friend and a good family -man. From his birth in Boston as the son of a poor candlemaker to his -election by Congress as America’s first ambassador to France and his -subsequent return to the United States, the author traces the -fascinating development of an impetuous and saucy youth who became a -beloved man both on his native soil and throughout the world. - - - - - Transcriber’s Notes - - ---Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and - dialect unchanged. - ---Collected series, volume, and author information at the end of the - e-text. - ---Copyright notice provided as in the original—this e-text is public - domain in the country of publication. - ---In the text versions, delimited italics text in _underscores_ (the - HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.) - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Benjamin Franklin, by Robin McKown - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BENJAMIN FRANKLIN *** - -***** This file should be named 62974-0.txt or 62974-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/2/9/7/62974/ - -Produced by Stephen Hutcheson and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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